The camera obscura has fascinated thinkers, artists, and scientists for centuries, leading to a rich and varied body of literature that spans multiple disciplines. Historians of science like Joseph Needham and Mark Smith have traced the early developments in optics, revealing how Chinese and Islamic scholars laid the foundation for our understanding of this optical phenomenon. These historical accounts often dovetail with the works of David C. Lindberg and others, who delve into the European tradition, exploring how luminaries like Roger Bacon and Johannes Kepler furthered the scientific understanding of optical imagery.
But the camera obscura is not just a scientific instrument; it is also a compelling metaphor that has captivated philosophers and theorists. This angle is often explored in philosophical literature that grapples with questions of perception, knowledge, and even the nature of existence itself.
In the realm of art history, scholars such as Philip Steadman have illuminated how artists like Johannes Vermeer may have used the camera obscura as an aid to achieve astonishing levels of detail in their work. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and others extend this line of inquiry, examining how the camera obscura influenced not only individual artists but also entire artistic movements, especially as it led to the development of photography.
The modern and technical aspects of the camera obscura are also well-documented. Whether it is academic papers dissecting the intricate mechanics of light and shadow or popular science articles aimed at a general audience, this body of literature continues to grow. Some include practical guides for building your own camera obscura, adding a hands-on dimension to the theoretical and historical texts.
Publications
AYCOUGH, James. A short account of the eye and nature of vision. Chiefly designed to illustrate the use and advantage of spectacles. Wherein are laid down rules for chusing glasses proper for remedying all the different defects of sight. As also some reasons for preferring a particular kind of glass, fitter than any other made use of for that purpose. London: Printed by E. Say for A. Strahan, 1755.
BARBARO, Daniele. Pratica della Perspettiva. Venice: Camillo and Rutilio Borgominier, 1568-1569.
BEURS, Willem. De groote waereld in ’t kleen geschildert. Amsterdam: Johannes van Gillis Janssonius van Waesberge, 1692.
BETTEIN, Mario. Apiaria Universae Philosophiae Mathematicae. Bologna, 1642.
BLANC, J. Peindre et penser le peinture au XVIIe siècle. La théorie de l’art de Samuel van Hoogstraten. Bern: Verlag Peter Lang, 2008.
BRUSAIT, Celeste. "Introduction." In Samuel van Hoogstraten's Introduction to the World of Painting, edited by Celeste Brusati, translated by Jaap Jacobs, 1-46. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2021.
BUBB, Martine. "La camera obscura: philosophie d'un appareil." Paris 8, 2008.
CARDANO, Girolamo. De Subtilitate. Nuremburg, 1550.
CHAPMAN, H. Perry. "The Imagined Studios of Rembrandt and Vermeer." In Inventions of the Studio. Renaissance to Romanticism, edited by Michael Cole and Mary Pardo, 108-146. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
COCQUYT, Tiemen. "The Camera Obscura and the Availability of Seventeenth Century Optics–Some Notes and an Account of a Test." In Inside the Camera Obscura – Optics and Art under the Spell of the Projected Image, edited by Wolfgang Lefèvre. Max-Planck Institute für Wissenschaftgeschichte (2007): 129-140.
COCQUYT, Tiemen. "‘Like water, That is Forced to Flow Through a Narrow Opening’: Beeckman’s Early Conceptualisation of the Telescope." Unpublished manuscript, typescript, January14, 2021.
CONSTABLE, A. Encyclopedia Britannica: Or, a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature, Enlarged and Improved, Volume 2. Edinburgh: 1824.
CRIMINISI, Antonio, Sing Bing Kang and Martin Kemp. 2004. "Reflections of Reality in Jan van Eyck and Roger Campin," Historical Methods, III, 109-121.
DARRIGOL, Olivier. A History of Optics: From Greek Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
DELLA PORTA , Giovanni Battista. Magia Naturalis (1st edition). Naples: Orazio Salviani, 1558.
DELLA PORTA, Giovanni Battista. Magia Naturalis (2nd edition). Naples: Orazio Salviani, 1589.
DELLA PORTA, Giovanni Battista. Magia Naturalis. Translated by Thomas Young and Samuel Speed. London, 1658
DELSAUTE, Jean-Luc. "The Camera Obscura and the Painting in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries." In Vermeer Studies, edited by Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998.
DOBELL, C. Antony van Leeuwenhoek and His "Little Animals" London: John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1932.
ELLIS, A. "Theatre: Camera Obscura." BMJ 324, no. 7348 (May 25, 2002).
FINK, Daniel A. "Vermeer's Use of the Camera Obscura: A Comparative Study." The Art Bulletin 53 (1971).
GERNSHEIM, H., with A. Gernsheim. The History of Photography: From the Camera Obscura to the Beginning of the Modern Era. Revised edition. London: Thames and Hudson, 1969. Originally published 1955.
GOMBRICH, Ernst. Shadows. The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art. London: National Gallery Publications, 1995.
GORMAN, Michael John. 2003. "Art, Optics and History: New Light on the Hockney Thesis." Leonardo 36 (24), 295-301.
GRABAR, Alexander, Pierre Mathey, Roman Iegorov, and Gregory Gadret. "Photorefractive camera obscura." Optics Communications 284, no. 22 (October 2011): 5361–63.
HOOKE, Robert. Philosophical Experiments and Observations. London: Printed by W. and J. Innys, Printers to the Royal Society, at the West end of St. Paul’s, 1726.
HUERTA, Robert D. Giants of Delft: Johannes Vermeer and the Natural Philosophers: The Parallel Search for Knowledge During the Age of Discovery. Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 2003.
HUERTA, Robert. The Natural Philosophers: The Parallel Search for Knowledge during the Age of Discovery. Bucknell University Press, 2003.
HYAAT, Mayor A. "The Photographic Eye." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, new series, vol. 1 (1946): 15–26.
JANSON, Jonathan. Looking over Vermeer’s Shoulder: Seventeenth-century Painting Techniques, Concepts and Studio Practices with Particular Focus on the Work of Johannes Vermeer Part I, II, III. Self-published, Essential Vermeer, 2020.
JELLEY, Jane. "From Perception to Paint: The Practical Use of the Camera Obscura in the Time of Vermeer." Art and Perception, July 2013.
KERN, Ulrike. "Light and Shadow, Clouds and Sunrays: The Concept of Reddering in Netherlandish Art." Oud Holland 124, no. 1 (2011): 209-230.
KERN, Ulrike. Light and Shade in Dutch and Flemish Art. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014.
KERSTEN, Michiel C.C. "Pieter de Hooch and Delft Genre Painting 1650-1675." In Delft Masters, Vermeer’s Contemporaries: Illusionism through the Conquest of Light and Space, edited by Michiel C.C. Kersten, and Danielle H.A.C. Lokin, 129-210. Zwolle; Waanders, 1996.
KERSTEN, Michiel C.C., and Danielle H.A.C. Lokin, eds. Delft Masters, Vermeer’s Contemporaries: lllusionism through the Conquest of Light and Space. Zwolle: Waanders, 1996.
KIRCHER, Athanasius. Ars Magna Lucis et Umbra. Romae: Sumptibus Hermanni Scheus, 1646.
LIEDTKE, Walter. Vermeer: The Complete Works. London: Abrams, 2008.
LIEDTKE, Walter. "Delft Painting ‘in Perspective’: Carel Fabritius, Leonart Bramer, and the Architectural and Townscape Painters from about 1650 Onward." In Vermeer and the Delft School, edited by Walter Liedtke, Michiel C. Plomp, and Axel Rüger, 98-129. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001.
LOKIN, Danielle H.A.C. "Delft Church interiors 1650-1675." In Delft Masters, Vermeer’s Contemporaries: Illusionism through the Conquest of Light and Space, edited by Michiel C.C. Kersten, and Danielle H.A.C. Lokin, 43-83. Zwolle; Waanders, 1996.
NINDBERG, D. C. "The Theory of Pinhole Images from Antiquity to the Thirteenth Century." Archive for History of the Exact Sciences 5 (1968-9): 154-76.
MAARSEVEEN, M. P. van. Vermeer of Delft: His Life and Times. Delft: Stedelijk Museum het Prinsenhof; Amersfoort: Bekking Publishers, 1996.
MENDE, Kazuko. "Light and Shadow in Painting–Concerning the Expression of Shadows in Western Painting." Journal for Geometry and Graphics 5, no. 1 (2001): 53-59.
MILLS, A. A., and M. L. Jones. "Three lenses by Constantijn Huygens in the possession of the Royal Society of London." Annals of Science 46 (1989): 173–182.
MILLS, A. A. "Vermeer and the camera obscura: some practical considerations." Leonardo, vol. 31, no. 3 (1998): 213–218.
LINDBERG, D. C. "The theory of pinhole images from antiquity to the thirteenth century." Archive for History of Exact Sciences, vol. 5 (1968): 154–176.
OWNEEN, Ursula. "Camera obscura." Index on Censorship 28, no. 6 (November 1999): 5–7.
PARK, D. The Fire Within the Eye: A Historical Essay on the Nature and Meaning of Light. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
PENNELL, Joseph. "Photography as a hindrance and a help to art." British Journal of Photography, no. 1618, vol. XXXVIII (1891): 294–296.
PIRENNE, M.H. Optics, Painting & Photography. London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
POTONNIEE, G. Histoire de la Decouverte de la Photographie. Paris, 1925. Translated by E. Epstean as The History of the Discovery of Photography. New York: Tennant and Ward, 1936.
RUESTOW, E. G. The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
SATO, N. "Camera Obscura's Role in Johannes Vermeer's Painting Space." Empirical Studies of the Arts (January 1, 2010).
SCHWARTS, Heinrick. "Vermeer and the Camera Obscura." Pantheon 24, 1966.
SCHIERBEEK, A. Measuring the Invisible World: The Life and Works of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek FRS. London: Abelard-Schumann, 1959.
SMITH, A. Mark. "What is the History of Medieval Optics Really About?" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 147, no. 2 (2004): 180-186.
SMITH, A. Mark. From Sight to Light: The Passage from Ancient to Modern Optics. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015.
SPOORS, Jacob. Oratie van de nieuwe wonderen des wereldts, de nuttigheyd, de waerdigheyd, der wis- ende meet-konsten. Delf: By Jan Pietersz. Waelpot, woonende aen’t Merc-veld, by ’t Stad-huys, inde Druckerye, 1638
WADE, N.J. A Natural History of Vision. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1998.
WALD, Robert. "The Art of Painting. Observations on Approach and Technique." in Vermeer die Malkunst: Spruchensicherung an einem meisterwerk, edited by Sabine Haag, Elke Oberthaler, and Sabine Pènot, 312-321. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 2010.
WADUM, Jørgen. "Vermeer in Perspective." In Johannes Vermeer, edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Ben Broos. New Haven and New York: Yale University Press, 1995. 67–79.
WATERHOUSE, J. "Notes on the early history of the camera obscura." The Photographic Journal, vol. XXXV (May, 1901): 270–290.
WEBER, Gregor. Johannes Vermeer: Faith, Light and Reflection. Rotterdam: nai010 publishers, 2023.
WELU, J. A. "Vermeer: His Cartographic Sources." Art Bulletin 57 (1975): 529-547.
WESTEIJN, Thijs. "'This Art Embraces All Visible Things in its Domain': Samuel van Hoogstraten and the Trattato della Pittura." In Re-Reading Leonardo: The Treatise on Painting Across Europe, 1550-1900, edited by Claire Farago, 415- 439. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009.
WHEELOCK, Arthur K. Jr. Perspective, Optics and Delft Artists Around 1650. Reprint of dissertation submitted to Harvard University, 1973. New York: Garland, 1977.
ZUIDERVAART, Huib J., and Marlise Rijks. " ‘Most rare workmen’: optical practitioners in early seventeenth-century Delft." The British Journal for the History of Science (2014): 1-33
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Websites
STEADMAN, Philip. "Vermeer and the Camera Obscura." Accessed [Date]. (A very informative website dealing with the principal theories of Philip Steadman.)
"The Camera Obcura," Wikipedia (The single, most exhaustive website about the camera obcura.)
"The Sky in a Room" (An interesting site which explains how you might turn a room of your house into a camera obscura.)
O'NEILL, Tom. "Rooms With a View" (Photographer Abelardo Morell's camera obscura turns darkened rooms into magical landscapes. Photograph by Abelardo Morell).
Camera Obscura References (from: Wikipedia)
Algarotti, Francesco. Saggio sopra la pittura. Livorno: Presso Marco Coltellini, 1764, 59–63.
Alpers, Svetlana. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. London: John Murray, 1983.
Bell, A. E. Christian Huygens and the Development of Science in the Seventeenth Century. London: Edward Arnold, 1947.
Belting, Hans. Das echte Bild. Bildfragen als Glaubensfragen. München, 2005.
Blankert, Albert, R Ruurs, and W. L. van der Watering. Vermeer of Delft. Oxford: Phaidon, 1978.
Beyer, Heinrich F., and Viateheslav P. Shevelko. Introduction to the Physics of Highly Charged Ions. CRC Press, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://books.google.com/books?id=5enLBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA42. Accessed January 11, 2021.
Boulger, Demetrius Charles. The Asiatic Review. 1969.
Brown, C. Carel Fabritius. Oxford: Phaidon, 1981.
Brusati, C. Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel Van Hoogstraten. Chicago: University Press, 1995.
Burkhard, Walther, and Przemek Zajfert. Camera Obscura Heidelberg. Stuttgart: edition merid, 2006.
Collins, Jane, and Andrew Nisbet. Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography. 2012.
Crombie, Alistair Cameron. Science, Optics, and Music in Medieval and Early Modern Thought. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990.
DeFleur, Melvin Lawrence, and Sandra Ball-Rokeach. Theories of Mass Communication, 5th ed. Longman, 1989.
Daxecker, Franz. "Christoph Scheiner und die Camera obscura," 2006. Bibcode:2006AcHA...28...37D.
d'Aguilon, François. Opticorum Libri Sex philosophis juxta ac mathematicis utiles. 1613.
della Porta, Giovanni Battista. Natural Magick (Book XVII, Chap. V + VI), 363–365. 1658.
Dupré, Sven. "Inside the 'Camera Obscura': Kepler's Experiment and Theory of Optical Imagery." Early Science and Medicine 13, no. 3 (2008): 219-244.
Durbin, P. T. Philosophy of Technology. 2012, 74.
Eder, Josef Maria. History of Photography. Translated by Edward Epstean. New York: Columbia University Press.
Goldstein, Bernard R. The Astronomy of Levi ben Gerson. 2012, 140-143.
Hill, Donald R. "Islamic Science and Engineering." Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993, 70.
Hooke, Robert. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, from Their Commencement, in 1665, to the Year 1800. London: R. Baldwin, 1809.
Ihde, Don. "Art Precedes Science: or Did the Camera Obscura Invent Modern Science?" In Instruments in Art and Science: On the Architectonics of Cultural Boundaries in the 17th Century, edited by Helmar Schramm, Ludger Schwarte, and Jan Lazardzig. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
Ilardi, Vincent. Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2007, 220.
Kelley, David H., E. F. Milone, and A. F. Aveni. Exploring Ancient Skies: An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2005.
Kircher, Athanasius. Ars Magna Lucis Et Umbrae. 1645, 806b.
Larsen, Kenneth. "Sonnet 24." Archived from the original on July 7, 2016. [Online]. Available: [URL]. Accessed September 2, 2016.
Lefèvre, Wolfgang, ed. Inside the Camera Obscura: Optics and Art under the Spell of the Projected Image. Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.
Lindberg, D. C. Theories of Vision from Al Kindi to Kepler. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976.
Mancha, J. L. Studies in Medieval Astronomy and Optics. 2006, 275-297.
Maurolico, Francesco. Photismi de lumine et umbra. 1611.
Nazeef, Mustapha. "Ibn Al-Haitham As a Naturalist Scientist." In proceedings of the Memorial Gathering of Al-Hacan Ibn Al-Haitham, December 21, 1939, Egypt Printing, 1940.
Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China, Vol. IV, Part 1: Physics and Physical Technology. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 3, 2017. [Online]. Available: [URL]. Accessed September 5, 2016.
Nicéron, Jean François. La Perspective curieuse. Paris: Chez la veufue F. Langlois, dit Chartres, 1652.
Omar, S. B. "Ibn al-Haitham's Optics." Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1977.
Ouellette, Jennifer. "deadspin-quote-carrot-aligned-w-bgr-2." Gizmodo, June 29, 2016.
Phelps Gage, Henry. Optic projection, principles, installation, and use of the magic lantern, projection microscope, reflecting lantern, moving picture machine. Ithaca, NY: Comstock Publishing Company, 1914. [Online]. Available: https://archive.org/details/opticprojection01gagegoog.
Pinson, Stephen. "Daguerre, expérimentateur du visuel." Études photographiques, no. 13 (July 1, 2003): 110-135.
Raynaud, Dominique. A Critical Edition of Ibn al-Haytham's On the Shape of the Eclipse. The First Experimental Study of the Camera Obscura. New York: Springer International, 2016.
Rohr, René R.J. Sundials: History, Theory, and Practice. 2012, 6.
Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China, Vol. IV, Part 1: Physics and Physical Technology. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 3, 2017. [Online]. Available: [URL]. Accessed September 5, 2016, 98.
Richter, Jean Paul, ed. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. FromOldBooks.org, 1880, 71.
Ruffles, Tom. Ghost Images: Cinema of the Afterlife. 15-17.
Smith, Roger. "A Look into Camera Obscuras." October 23, 2014.
Loret, Jean (1595?-1665). La muze historique, ou Recueil des lettres en vers contenant les nouvelles du temps, Tome 2. 1857–1891.
Snyder, Laura J. Eye of the Beholder. 2015.
Stoffregen, Thomas A. "On the Physical Origins of Inverted Optic Images." Ecological Psychology 25, no. 4 (October 2013): 369–382. doi:10.1080/10407413.2013.839896.
Steadman, Philip. Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth Behind the Masterpieces. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, 9.https://books.google.com/books?id=9Xu6lJc2Nt8C. Accessed January 11, 2021.
Steadman, Philip; Vermeer, Johannes. Vermeer's camera: uncovering the truth behind the masterpieces. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Stoffregen, Thomas A. "On the Physical Origins of Inverted Optic Images." Ecological Psychology 25, no. 4 (October 2013): 369–382. doi:10.1080/10407413.2013.839896.
Sturm, Johann. Collegium experimentale, sive curiosum. 1676, 161-163.
Surdin, V., and M. Kartashev. "Light in a dark room." Quantum 9.6 (1999): 40.
Wade, Nicholas J., and Stanley Finger. "The eye as an optical instrument: from camera obscura to Helmholtz's perspective." Perception 30, no. 10 (2001): 1157-1177.
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. "Constantijn huygens and early attitudes towards the camera obscura." History of Photography 1, no. 2 (2013): 93-103.
Whitehouse, David. The Sun: A Biography. 2004.
Zewail, Ahmed H., and John Meurig Thomas. 4D Electron Microscopy: Imaging in Space and Time. 2010, 5.
"Leonardo and the Camera Obscura / Kim Veltman." Sumscorp.com. December 2, 1986. Archived from the original on September 18, 2017. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
"Camera Obscura and World of Illusions Edinburgh - fun for all the family". Camera Obscura and World of Illusions Edinburgh.
Contesting Visibility: Photographic Practices on the East African Coast, Heike Behrend, transcript, 2014.
"Contemporary Photographers and the Camera Obscura," I Require Art, 14 February 2019. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
"Exuberant and tragic poppies: An interview with Richard Learoyd".
"Introduction to the Camera Obscura." National Science and Media Museum, January 28, 2011. Archived from the original on November 11, 2021. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
An Anthropological Trompe L'Oeil for a Common World: An Essay on the Economy of Knowledge, Alberto Corsin Jimenez, Berghahn Books, 15 June 2013.
Philosophy of Technology: Practical, Historical and Other Dimensions, P.T. Durbin, Springer Science & Business Media.