MovieChat Forums > Tim's Vermeer (2014) Discussion > Consistency of light?

Consistency of light?

posted 10 years ago by bromley81
16 replies | jump to latest

One thing that nagged me as I watched was how either Tim or Vermeer could keep the light from outdoors consistent throughout the process? The film points out that the outstanding qualities in Vermeer's work are the shades and gradations that humans would otherwise not register, so I would think any subtle shift in the exterior light would throw the whole thing off a bit, on a much greater scale than the out-of-place chair that happens partway through.

Tim's studio faced north as Vermeer's did, but is this really all it takes to neutralize the sun's gradual movement throughout such a lengthy process? Not just the angle and color of the light in the course of a day but the quality of the light throughout the months-long process. Holland has quite a bit of rain, and even San Antonio has the occasional cloud passing overhead, so how did either of these two men, assuming Tim's hypothesis is correct, work around this problem? Perhaps it's just patience and only working for the same few hours each day and only if the sky is clear, but it seems like this would be a large obstacle to me.

Or perhaps it works for the very reason that humans wouldn't notice the more subtle changes anyways, much as Tim's accidental nudging of the lens partway through isn't noticeable either.

[–] elbartokon 10 years ago

good question
I've never thought of that, but here's my theory.
Maybe he was painting on specific times of day and only with the same weather conditions. Or maybe the changes would blend in giving the "dreamy" look the paintings have, just as would happen with a long exposure photograph
A good example is this http://itchyi.squarespace.com/thelatest/2010/7/20/the-longest-photographic-exposures-in-history.html
Look how the changes fade into newer objects and realities making it hard to distinguish which building is the old and where the old ends and the new starts

Anyway, just my explanation

[–] jab670 10 years ago

That is my impression. It was probably a mixture of those. He likely painted at midday when the sun would be around the same angle for several hours and as the film mentions, he had a north-facing studio, which would maximize this, especially in the summer. So he could easily paint for 4 hours without substantial shifts - except for weather.

And he problem updated the painting, maybe evening out the lighting in the final stages of the painting so that it appears consistent. And since we don't have a photograph of the actual scene, we don't know what the light quality was, how it changed and if that had an impact on the color rendering.

[–] Dave_8675309 10 years ago

It's a good question, but I have a guess as to how it works. There was little to no artificial lighting, so lighting changes in the room being painted would also affect the painter's room. Since he's matching the colors and shading in the mirror to the canvas, they would change together and he'd always get an accurate reproduction.

[–] bing-57 8 years ago

> Since he's matching the colors and shading in the mirror to the canvas, they would change together and he'd always get an accurate reproduction.

Except that, unless he was very careful, a shade line would start to droop as he copied it in different parts of the canvas as the sun moved.

I am thinking that he had a schedule and would work on different parts of the painting at specific times of the day to keep the sunlight angles consistent. Perhaps a deep analysis could determine that, for example, he worked on the upper part of the canvas in the morning and the lower half in the afternoon.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

[–] guy48065 10 years ago

The lighting -- or rather the rendering of it -- is for me the one major logical flaw in the documentary. If Vermeer's work is "photo-realistic" wIth one of the supposed proofs being the subtle gradations of light on the wall above the harpsichord -- why is the viewer then expected to validate this based on what our eyes supposedly can't perceive?

[–] Naldoman 10 years ago

Guy - It's not something we cannot see on the canvas. We can see the subtle color changes on the canvas.

The POINT is that if Vermeer was simply looking at the wall, he would NOT have seen these gradations and NOT painted them.

The reason he could see the changes is BECAUSE he used a camera obscurra, which changed the nature of what could be seen, just as using a lens today changes the range of what we can see.

[–] rockmail 9 years ago

Which is totally wrong because Tim's painting is MISSING a ton of gradations that Vermeer's painting has, lol.

[–] quirkyrecords 9 years ago

And Vermeer was a master painter and Tim is a guy with a mirror.

[–] rockmail 9 years ago

It's because you and many of the people replying here have never created artwork themselves.

Even in photography, much less painting, the final result is not an atomic level reproduction of reality. It's a new representation based on what the artist wants to portray. It's NOT IMPORTANT that the light be EXACTLY the same from day to day, or hour to hour, since the artist is going to be adjusting the color scheme, light, shadows, and rendering of detail according to the final result they want, not a precise duplication of what they are viewing. Photographers do the same thing with filters, films, digital processing, etc.

So it's a mistake right off the bat to worry about a perfectly consistent environment, since it's JUST A REFERENCE TOOL for shapes, sizes, perspective, color relationships, textures, etc. The final result truly comes from the artist's mind's eye.

[–] supreme_lennert 9 years ago

But isnt the whole point of the documentary that Vermeer would see the perfect color with the mirror thing. Wouldnt the whole painting be ruined if you would paint one part of the carpet on a sunny day and the other part on a rainy one? Because the colors will change depending on the sunlight.

[–] rzajac 9 years ago

Wait a minute... Didn't Tim put artificial lights outside the windows? I'll look again....

--
And I'd like that. But that 5h1t ain't the truth. --Jules Winnfield

[–] quirkyrecords 9 years ago

No.

[–] post-meridian 9 years ago

I enjoyed this film and find its premise completely plausible. The possibility that Vermeer might have used a lens and a mirror doesn't diminish his genius one bit, in fact it enhances it in my view. Too bad only Vermeer's paintings in which the main subjects were set in a brightly lit room were used as examples in this film. Vermeer's portraits - like the famous "Girl With The Pearl Earring", which I saw in person 2 years ago here in San Francisco - show Vermeer was a genius at portrait painting as well.

The question of how he might have dealt with changing light conditions is easily answered. By comparing the reflected and painted images, Vermeer would have immediately noticed a color difference and wouldn't have continued painting then. He would have waited until the light conditions matched. Conditions would be similar at the same time each day barring varying weather conditions. Maybe he would put down his brush and grind his paints until the light conditions were correct.

[–] cheepnis 9 years ago

They mentioned it in passing that both studios had north facing windows but they didn't really explain that artists like that type of light because it's always soft, consistent, reflected light as opposed to harsher, shifting direct sunlight from the east, south, or west. They briefly showed the cathedral (and their plywood cut-outs) because it probably influenced the light.

Also, years of practice would likely allow Vermeer to work much more efficiently than someone who is painting for practically the first time ever.

[–] daryl-b-t 8 years ago

Aziz Light!