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108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

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Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#111

Post by curiousObject »

atombender wrote: post #87
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A man of culture I see :) I watch his restorations with onesie, but his narrative (when it's not technical) is tiring because it wants to be fancy but it sounds fake to me. His technical work looks great to me, I have no idea about conservation outside his videos. I heard that he got a lot of hate from conservators (which I do not understand) and actively fought critical comments on his videos (which I find petty). I…

My layperson's understanding regarding the criticisms against Julian Baumgartner is that he uses a lot of invasive methods that don't meet the strict technical standards employed by professional conservators, and this creates a misleading impression of what conservation actually is. For example, you will frequently see Baumgartner do over- and in-painting of fairly large areas that have been lost. Modern conservation…

If someone is so skillful that they can restore the painting to its original state, then I think they would be skillful enough to make a perfect copy, so there’s no need to tamper with the original work.

Their expert copy of the work would be valuable and educational in itself, and avoid damaging the original

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#112

Post by hammock »

dmd wrote: post #96
roughly wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get a chance to see some of the impressionists in person, they’re kind of mind blowing for exactly the same reason - you’re looking at a scene of a ship in a storm and seeing all kinds of nuance, and then you get closer and realize it’s all your brain filling in the blanks. From a literary angle - two books I’ve read that are absolute master classes in this are Italio Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” and “This Is…

If anyone's in Minneapolis, see this theater production of Invisible Cities: https://www.southerntheater.org/shows/invisible-cities-a-toy... - it's fantastic.

Sold out :(

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#113

Post by hammock »

ridgeguy wrote: post #108

This scan should preclude forgery of the work. I doubt there's a way to duplicate the crack patterns that anyone can now refer to.

It would be crazy set of events to lose the provenance paper trail of this piece, at this point, cracks documents or not.

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#114

Post by CollinEMac »

aestetix wrote: post #101
lubujackson wrote: post #8

I highly recommend the movie "Tim's Vermeer" about the likelihood that Vermeer used something like a lightbox to paint his paintings. Specifically, his ability to reproduce light and color is unmatched while he only had basic training as a painter and never let anyone see him work. A fascinating engineering problem to deduce how he might have accomplished this.

I highly recommend against watching the movie. The main figure, Tim Jenison, comes off as an arrogant know-it-all, reducing art to a technique, and insulting people along the way. In the movie, multiple times he said "I have never done this before, but how hard could it be?" I'll note two parts of the movie that support my view. First, if his art is so great, then why is it not displayed all over the place? He has a…

I agree that Tim definitely comes off as a bit of a jerk. However...

> First, if his art is so great, then why is it not displayed all over the place? He has a few alleged experts giving praise without criticism, and in the end, it is on the wall in his bedroom. Surely, if the art were that easy to recreate, galleries would be demanding his piece?

I could be wrong but I don't think there's much demand for replicas of classic paintings even if they are incredibly high quality. A lot of the value of a Vermeer painting is that it was actually painted by Vermeer in the 17th century -- not necessarily the quality of the piece itself.

Regarding your second point, who knows?

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#115

Post by trylfthsk »

vanderZwan wrote: post #58
lubujackson wrote: post #8

I highly recommend the movie "Tim's Vermeer" about the likelihood that Vermeer used something like a lightbox to paint his paintings. Specifically, his ability to reproduce light and color is unmatched while he only had basic training as a painter and never let anyone see him work. A fascinating engineering problem to deduce how he might have accomplished this.

Side-rant: I just watched a clip[0] and I have to say something about the misrepresentation of the Hockney-Falco thesis[1] in it. And when I say I have to I really mean that: I'm Dutch, tried studying physics, dropped out, switched to studying art, specifically photography (even built my own camera at one point), then in the first year of art school was introduced to the Hockney-Falco thesis, then went to the Interna…

This does make me wonder what kinds of secrets can and can't be kept; on the face of it, that a critical bit of insider information would be kept for oral transmission at particular times (something like a mystery cult) leads me to think that keeping such a secret is at least possible.

At the same time, people love gossip.

Of course, the only secrets we know from the past were by definition not exactly well-kept.

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#116

Post by aestetix »

CollinEMac wrote: post #114
aestetix wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend against watching the movie. The main figure, Tim Jenison, comes off as an arrogant know-it-all, reducing art to a technique, and insulting people along the way. In the movie, multiple times he said "I have never done this before, but how hard could it be?" I'll note two parts of the movie that support my view. First, if his art is so great, then why is it not displayed all over the place? He has a…

I agree that Tim definitely comes off as a bit of a jerk. However... > First, if his art is so great, then why is it not displayed all over the place? He has a few alleged experts giving praise without criticism, and in the end, it is on the wall in his bedroom. Surely, if the art were that easy to recreate, galleries would be demanding his piece? I could be wrong but I don't think there's much demand for replicas of…

I thought the point of the movie was to claim that Vermeer was nothing special, and Tim's effort to recreate the painting was supposed to prove that. I think the galleries would disagree with that point, otherwise they would not care whether Vermeer actually painted them.

And yes, both of my points are speculation, fueled by an immense dislike for the movie.

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#117

Post by theSuda »

cgriswald wrote: post #11

When viewing this I was captivated by the girl's lips. In the full view, the bottom lip looks not just full and moist, but slightly wet. Zooming in, it's a bit of a muddy mess with only a splash of white giving definition to the (anatomical) left of the girl's mouth. In my current incarnation I'm a fledgling novelist and one of the things I've learned is to trust the audience to 'fill in the gaps'. Although this is p…

I zoomed in and zoomed out instantly as soon as I realized it was breaking the illusion for me. I just love how our brain actually fills in these gaps.

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#118

Post by loxias »

roughly wrote: post #26
cgriswald wrote: post #11

When viewing this I was captivated by the girl's lips. In the full view, the bottom lip looks not just full and moist, but slightly wet. Zooming in, it's a bit of a muddy mess with only a splash of white giving definition to the (anatomical) left of the girl's mouth. In my current incarnation I'm a fledgling novelist and one of the things I've learned is to trust the audience to 'fill in the gaps'. Although this is p…

If you get a chance to see some of the impressionists in person, they’re kind of mind blowing for exactly the same reason - you’re looking at a scene of a ship in a storm and seeing all kinds of nuance, and then you get closer and realize it’s all your brain filling in the blanks. From a literary angle - two books I’ve read that are absolute master classes in this are Italio Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” and “This Is…

> "This Is How You Lose the Time War"

No other book captured the feelings of being 20-something and flirting like reading this. Reading it felt like being right back there again, with all the excitement and anxiety. Highly recommended to anyone.

Unsure how it connects to the notion of a brain filling in the blanks. I thought it was quite "filled in", but maybe my brain did it, and therefore I'm making your point for you :)

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#119

Post by ahoog42 »

roughly wrote: post #26
cgriswald wrote: post #11

When viewing this I was captivated by the girl's lips. In the full view, the bottom lip looks not just full and moist, but slightly wet. Zooming in, it's a bit of a muddy mess with only a splash of white giving definition to the (anatomical) left of the girl's mouth. In my current incarnation I'm a fledgling novelist and one of the things I've learned is to trust the audience to 'fill in the gaps'. Although this is p…

If you get a chance to see some of the impressionists in person, they’re kind of mind blowing for exactly the same reason - you’re looking at a scene of a ship in a storm and seeing all kinds of nuance, and then you get closer and realize it’s all your brain filling in the blanks. From a literary angle - two books I’ve read that are absolute master classes in this are Italio Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” and “This Is…

Jonathan Sawday’s 2023 book “Blanks, Print, Space, and Void in English Renaissance Literature: An Archaeology of Absence.” [1] explores this phenomenon as well across multiple mediums.

It also won the Modern Language Association's top award — the James Russell Lowell Prize for the most outstanding book published in 2023.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/book/46695

Re: 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring

#120

Post by colonelspace »

aestetix wrote: post #116
CollinEMac wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Tim definitely comes off as a bit of a jerk. However... > First, if his art is so great, then why is it not displayed all over the place? He has a few alleged experts giving praise without criticism, and in the end, it is on the wall in his bedroom. Surely, if the art were that easy to recreate, galleries would be demanding his piece? I could be wrong but I don't think there's much demand for replicas of…

I thought the point of the movie was to claim that Vermeer was nothing special, and Tim's effort to recreate the painting was supposed to prove that. I think the galleries would disagree with that point, otherwise they would not care whether Vermeer actually painted them. And yes, both of my points are speculation, fueled by an immense dislike for the movie.

The point of the documentary was to show that Vermeer may have used optics.

That's it.

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