Passion or Obsession?

When I was in my teens, I saw my first Vermeer, The Concert, at the Gardner Museum in Boston during a Girl Scout field trip. I became enamored of the artist and his use of light.  As I aged and traveled, I managed to view Vermeers in New York, London, Washington, DC, Edinburgh, Paris Amsterdam and The Hague. I thought I had a passion for the man's work. Wrong!

I recently watched Tim's Vermeer, a documentary film by Penn and Teller tracing Penn's friend Tim Denison's 2008-2013 quest to satisfy himself that Vermeer used technology to create his amazing accurate details and astounding shadings. He argues that if Vermeer did use tech, then he (Denison) should be able to "paint a Vermeer" using that same tech, even though he had never painted anything in his life. A video/television inventor and technician, Denison thought Vermeer used a mirror and a version of the camera obscure to capture the actual light in a room. Denison interested Professor Phillip Steadman and artist David Hockney in his search; their reactions when he unveiled his Vermeer were wonderful.

I was awed by this man's determination to answer his questions about the painter's techniques. I realize Denison's fortune enable him to fulfill his quest. Nonetheless, I am in awe of his resolution to continue despite the backbreaking work and mind-melting attention to detail. I shuddered when he cut the lathe in half because he needed one a big longer in order to re-create the furniture leg he needed. An entirely different shudder went through me when he realized he had to paint the rug's individual threads and knots. (I was flabbergasted when that detail was the first thing Hockney commented on she he saw the finished painting.)

One question permeates the film: Why does there have to be chasm between art and technology? So what if Vermeer used lenses and mirrors to replicate what he imagined, he still put paint to canvas and created wonders.

I won't share the entire saga, just tidbits I noted as I watched, then re-watched this 80 minute film.

• 133 days to paint the picture
• learned how to make paints like Vermeer would have used
• created lenses and mirrors aping those of Vermeer's time
• 213 days to create a replica of the room in Vermeer's house where so many of his paintings are situated
• not one shred of paper documentation exists about Vermeer's art (Hockney argues that a painting IS a document.)
• fewer than 3 dozen Vermeers exist in the world

When you have an hour or so, watch the film. Then ask yourself two questions while you make plans to visit the closest museum displaying a Vermeer.

1. Is Denison the embodiment of passion or obsession?
2. Just because technology is used, does it lessen the impact of the art?

Thank you Penn for having the perspicacity to envision this project. Thank you Tim for allowing your labors and feelings to be recorded. Thank you Johannes Vermeer for bringing light to my world.