Download Renaissance Painters & the Camera Obscura

Renaissance Painters &
the Camera Obscura
Officer &
a
Laughing
Girl
Jan
Vermeer
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.
an illustration of a camera obscura
from J. Zahn, Oculusteledioptricus 2nd ed., Nuremberg, 1702.
The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek
.
a booth-type
camera obscura
' Vermeer is alone in putting the camera
obscura to the service of style rather than
the accumulation of facts.'
The painter's 'explanatory vocabulary', his
'interruption and denial of line', his 'optical
impartiality', and above all the 'unvarying
adequacy, the uniform success of his
method' - all these can be attributed to a
technique which depends on careful,
prolonged observation of patterns of light
falling on the camera obscura.“ - Gowing
Once the film
camera was
invented,
painting stopped
being about
recording,
and more about
interpreting
!