Is the premise of this movie only singling out Vermeer's realistic art, or is someone like Hans Holbein the Younger supposed to have used a similar technique? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Holbein_the_Younger#mediaviewer/File :Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_Edward_VI_as_a_Child_-_Google_Art_Project. jpg
His portraits are nearly photographs.
I'll mourn him to my very marrow. The pity is he will never know how much I will grieve.
It's possible that Holbein knew about and used the camera obscura. It had been around since before Aristotle, because even he know about it. Holbein was too early to have access to the types of lenses available in Vermeer's time though. Holbein died 90 or so years before Vermeer was born. The advances in optics in 17th century Netherlands were astounding in part due to Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the microscope and a lensmaker. He was known to Vermeer. Maybe this is an example of art and technology developing hand in hand.
shareLook at "The Ambassadors" by Holbein at an angle from the lower left edge (similar to the way Tim discovered the curve in the seahorse patten)...
Does that strange shape at the bottom look clearer? An artist using Tim's technique would only have to tilt the canvas or the mirror to distort the image that way. Hmmmmmm.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_%28Holbein%29#/media/File:Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_The_Ambassadors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg