Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/11/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>There was a great BBC programme with Hockney on this - very very interesting >(great stuff like famous paintings, that when you look closely, have depth >of field/out of focus problems! And suddenly, at the time when certain >optical devices become available, everyone in a lot of paintings becomes >left handed... even a monkey in one picture! >I flicked through Hockneys book of the programme - very interesting too. >[snip] >I imagine it will come to PBS or something like that sometime. There was a >good article in the Radio Times, and one in the New Yorker by Hockney a year >or so ago. >Tim A On this issue, read Philip Steadman's "Vermeer's Camera" (Oxford, 2001), reviewed here on the Lug last spring when the book came out. Steadman studies the same problem as Hockney, but he did it first, if I recall. His book is also the most thorough exploration of the potential use of a camera obscura by Vermeer, something that has been debated forever, but has yet to be proven. Steadman can't prove it either, but he gives some very compelling evidence that Vermeer did indeed use some form of camera to compose and paint his pictures. A good read. Guy - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html