Watching this film is a virtual art course in itself. Tim Jenison takes us on a search for the secrets of Dutch artist Vermeer's tremendous use of light in his art work. He researches early applications of the so called camera obscura and the use of lenses. He comes up with a possible theory of how Vermeer painted and then gets to work confirming his theory. His first test is a simple mirror reflecting an object onto a canvas. He experiments with this and confirms his thesis. He then decides to apply his model to recreating one of Vermeer's masterpieces. The outcome is sensational. The movie shows all the various constructional aspects, which as an engineer I really love. I kept wanting to get up out of my seat and start building a similar model. The detail which he went to in order to recreate the scene of the painting was astounding.
Review of Tim's Vermeer
