Details: Vermeer's Painting Methods & Techniques
THE LACEMAKER
c.1669-1670
oil on canvas
9 5/8 x 8 1/4 in. (24...5 x 21 cm.)
the camera obscura
It is now generally accepted that Vermeer employed the camera obscura as an aid to his painting, although there is great debate to exactly to what extent. Phillip Steadman, in his exhaustive study of the subject, deduces that Vermeer may have even used the projected image of the camera obscura to trace directly on his canvas. The camera obscura itself greatly restricts the complexities of visual phenomena thereby facilitating the painter's job of translating natural phenomena to a simpler painted reality. It also produces the so called halations or disks of confusion which are to bee seen in many Vermeers. In no other painting can these effects be seen so dramatically as in The Lacemaker. The objects seen in the unfocused still-life have been painted according to an optical reality similar to that created by the camera obscura rather than the conceptual reality to such a degree that some of the objects are no longer recognizable. The threads that issue from the sewing cushion have been transformed into a delightful red foam. The contrast between the world of the still-life suspended in its luminous dissolution and the almost painfully intense clarity of the young woman completely absorbed in her domestic chore, constitutes on the most visually gratifying passages in Vermeer's art. Although Vermeer certainly made the camera obscura an essential part of his working method, this miniscule painting has an almost religious significance that no mechanical aid can either suggest or create. It can only be born from the artist's deepest being.
