Back about ten years ago or so David Hockney was in the news with his theory about Renaissance artists using a device like a Camera Obscura and/or mirrors to create their masterpieces. He pointed to distortions in the length of model’s bodies in some famous paintings and even tell -tale convex mirrors on the walls of rooms in the paintings. He wrote a book about it and this Tim guy, a successful tinkerer with money and no art background, set out to prove Hockney right by painting a Vermeer. Like a Renaissance inventor he ingenoiusly determined the right combination of lens and mirrors painted a damn Vermeer.
The movie, “Tim’s Vermeer,” now playing at the Little makes it clear how much patience is required to paint in this tedious fashion. I’m thinking once Vermeer sold his first painting he probably hired minimum wage employees to paint his pictures. I kept wondering what my friend, the painter, Steve Piotrowski who loves Vermeer would think about all this. Someone in the movie made the point that it is only the art historians who are upset to see Vermeer’s star tarnished. Artists just shrug.
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The only thing that matters is that picture of snow. I am increasingly fascinated by the way snow melts and how it changes as it does.
Somewhere I read that more snow evaporates than melts. I think about that a lot.