the use of optical devices by baroque painters

1. On the Use of Optical Devices
by Baroque Painters
And the fascinating
relationship between
science and art

2. On the Use of Optical Devices
by Baroque Painters
And the fascinating
relationship between
science and art

3. Working Art Department, Science
Department and Technology
Department

Make a small camara obscura to see
how light forms images

Construct a booth-type camera
obscura existing in Veermer age and
trace the image formed from it using a
lens

Make a camara obscura out of a dark
room and trace a drawing from it

4. Objetives in Visual Art classes

To know how images are formed out of
light.

To compare Vermeer and Caravaggio
paintings with other paintings to analize
the differences when using optical
devices or not.

5. What we are doing in Visual Art
classes

Searching for information about the use
of optical devices in art in Baroque times
and before.

Searching on the Internet for information
about Caravaggio and Vermeer.

Searching for information about the still
existing debate in the use of the camara
obscura

6. What we have done

A pinhole camera made from a shoe
box or others smaller, exposed on
photographic paper. The length of the
exposure was about 10 minutes.

Elaborate this presentation

7. How to make a pinhole
Camara to see images

1. Paint the entire box with black paint

2. Make a hole with a needle in one of
the faces. The hole have to be smooth

3. Cut a small rectangle in the opposite
side (1 by 2 cm) to look through it.

Place a transparent tracing paper
between both faces.

Look through the window: an inverted

8. Short video showing the principles of a camara obscura
and a detail from a Vermeer’s painting projected through it
Vermeer Master of Light 45 Camera Obscura.wmv

9. How to make a Shoebox
Pinhole camara

Paint the inside of the box with black
paint

Make a hole with a needle. It has to be
very smooth. Use the tap of a yoghurt.
Cover the hole with black tape. This will
be your camara shutter

In a pitch black room place the
photograph paper in the oppossite face
inside the box. The camara is now

10. What we have done

11. What we have done

12. What we have done

13. What we have done

14. Although optical devices were used by
European painters from the early 15th century,
1600 was the moment when the look of
European painting changed.

The agent
of change
was
Caravaggio
in Italy.

And
Veermer in
Holland.

15. 
An illustration of
a camera
obscura from
J. Zahn,
Oculustelediopt
ricus 2nd ed.,
Nuremberg,
1702. The
Hague,
Koninklijke
Bibliotheek.

16. the basic camera obscura
consists of a
room with a small opening, the
images are projected both
upside down and reversed
the portable camera obscura uses
a lens to focus the image which is
reflected from a slanted mirror to a
translucent screen, the image is
righted but still reversed

17. The booth-type camera
obscura
It is a sort of closed box fitted
with some arrangement of
lenses or mirrors large enough
for an observer to be seated
inside. The principal advantage
is that, because the space is
enclosed securely, only the
light which is filtered through
the lens aperture enters the
booth. Thus, the image is
particularly clean and brilliant

19. There is absolutely no
documentary evidence
to support the idea of
using optical devices by
Vermeer or Caravaggio.
The only source of
information is the visual
information exhibited by
the paintings themselves.
The Milkmaid
c. 1658-60 (150 Kb); Oil on canvas,
45.4 x 41 cm (17 7/8 x 16 1/8 in);
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

20. There are essentially five characteristics of
Vermeer's paintings that suggest the use of a
camera obscura

perspective

tonal rendering

composition

handling of light

some peculiar effects produced
uniquely by the camera obscura.

21. PERSPECTIVE

For centuries painters had both a
working and theoretical knowledge of
perspective and understood very well
that, to create a believable three
dimensional space, figures which
appeared far from the viewer had to be
represented smaller while those which
were nearer had to be proportionately
larger.

22. PERSPECTIVE:
Soldier and a Laughing Girl
c. 1658 (190 Kb); Oil on canvas, 49.2 x 44.4
cm; The Frick Collection, New York
Note the evident
discrepancy in scale
of the two figures.
Before eyes had
been accustomed to
the modern
photographic
camera's way of
seeing, in 1891
Joseph Pennell was
the first to suppose
that Vermeer might
have employed an
optical device as an
aid to his painting

23. Because the
viewpoint of the
picture is unusually
close to the table, in
17th-century painting
Vermeer's
contemporaries
would have made
this closer object
smaller and render
what the artist knew
rather that what he
The Music Lesson
saw
c. 1662-65 (180 Kb); Oil on canvas, 74.6 x 64.1
cm; Royal Collection, St. James' Palace,
London

24. PECULIAR EFFECTS PRODUCED
BY THE CAMARA OBSCURA:
POINTILLÈS did not focus with complete precision
17th-century lenses

through the entire depth of fields.

The effects of imperfect focus in the camera obscura
produced the so called pointillès found in many of
Vermeer's paintings. Vermeer's pointillès, globular
touches of thick opaque paint, "resemble nothing so
much as the fuzzy, overlapping sequins of light that
appear in an out-of-focus photograph and are referred
to as 'discs of confusion' by photographers." 7

The disks of confusion seen on the screen of a camera
obscura occur in the place of natural highlights, bright
reflections of various forms and intensities frequently
seen with the naked eye on shiny
surfaces such

25. details of the lion's head finial
in Seymour's camera obscura (left)
and of Vermeer's Girl in a Red Hat
a purposely unfocussed photograph
modern day door knocker
photographed at the Oude Delft,
Delft, which gives surprisingly similar
results as Seymour's experiments

26. Optical
devices
certainly don't
paint pictures,
the use of
them
diminishes no
great artist.
The Music Lesson
c. 1662-65 (180 Kb); Oil on canvas, 74.6 x 64.1
cm; Royal Collection, St. James' Palace,
London

27. BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/camera_obscura/co_one.html

www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/vermeer_camera_02.shtml Philip Steadman,
Vermeer and the Camera obscura

Jean-Luc Delsaute, "The Camera Obscura and Painting in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," in
Vermeer Studies, p. 111

Philip Steadman, Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces, Oxford, 2001, p. 21

Mariet Westermann, Vermeer and the Dutch Interior, Madrid, 2003, p. 226


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jruwMMT_bc8: Against the use of the camara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Vermeer: Vermeer

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Johannes Vermeer

(Videos): Vermeer: Master of Light - at the National Gallery of Art, Washington
›
Part 1: Woman Holding a Balance
›
Part 2: The Music Lesson

28. The Art of
Painting

The painting is
famous for being
one of Vermeer's
favourites. Many
art experts
believe that the
work of art is an
allegory of
painting, hence
the alternate title
of the painting. It
is the largest and
most complex of
all of Vermeer's
works.