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What is it about a picture or other work of art that attracts us or draws our attention? Is it beauty, subject matter or the mystery of production? Artists are frequently thought to have a special gift or talent that places them apart from the rest of us. That gift is commonly thought to be the ability to "draw" or create images from nothing. During the Baroque period, a device called the Camera Obscura became available that might have been of great value to one artist in particular: Jan Vermeer .
In the same way that the printing press brought literacy and the keyboard brought
musical literature to the masses, the Camera Obscura made it
possible for an artist to create complex perspectives and realistic figures by simply
tracing the images projected through the device. Read about Vermeer and the Camera Obscura
by clicking on
links above and the
following buttons.
Was Vermeer cheating? Are his pictures less beautiful because they may have been created with a visual aid? Do you think other artists we have seen in this period used this device? Who? Why?
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Baroque & Rococo
Overview
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