trelerke-politics Review of Tim's Vermeer

Tim's Vermeer (2013)

simply astounding, both for the unraveling of the mystery of Vermeer and it's implications for the meaning of art

[9/10 · 27 February 2014]

a seemingly flatly told, casual little story that is anything but. The scientific method is at play here, full stop. Tim Denison had a theory about how Vermeer painted and wanted to assess whether this theory was true, he controlled all the conditions he possibly could and by doing so, ruled out possible alternative explanations, well, as much as is probably do-able. The main premise is that Vermeer used optical methods to produce his vibrating, amazingly photographic/life like images. Tim, with absolutely no training or experience with almost anything to do with painting went about reproducing a Vermeer, he learned wood working, traditional paint mixing, lens grinding etc so he could recreate the tableau that Vermeer used as exactly as possible. As we know almost nothing about Vermeer's method, Tim had to figure out what was possible given the technology of the day, and he essentially did, you need to see the movie to see what actually happened. Suffice it to say, this untrained but incredibly dogged and creative/inventive man managed to reproduce a master work from one of the greatest of the European painters. The details, figures, shading are simply miraculous! The implications are enormous and in no way detracts from Vermeer's genius. Even today Tim could have just kept this method to himself and produced a bunch of new paintings of whatever he wanted and these would be hailed as extraordinary works of art because NO ONE besides Vermeer ever got close to this level of painting, obviously Tim is not inspired by such notoriety or need for money. Thus, a new way of seeing the world is made manifest.