1 00:01:24,646 --> 00:01:31,443 You know, sometimes when I'm laying in bed at night 2 00:01:31,527 --> 00:01:34,231 trying to get to sleep, 3 00:01:34,321 --> 00:01:40,904 all I can think about is this goal of trying to paint a Vermeer. 4 00:01:40,993 --> 00:01:44,444 You know, really, I'm gonna try to paint a Vermeer. 5 00:01:44,538 --> 00:01:50,575 And, at the face of it, that seems almost impossible. 6 00:01:50,668 --> 00:01:53,669 And I don't know if I could do it. 7 00:01:55,923 --> 00:01:59,042 You know, it'll be pretty remarkable if I can, 8 00:02:00,343 --> 00:02:02,382 because I'm not a painter. 9 00:02:13,521 --> 00:02:16,770 The Vermeer he's talking about is Johannes Vermeer, 10 00:02:16,857 --> 00:02:19,430 the Dutch artist from the 1600s. 11 00:02:19,526 --> 00:02:23,108 Some consider him the greatest painter of all time. 12 00:02:23,195 --> 00:02:27,940 When you look at a Vermeer, it seems like more than paint on canvas. 13 00:02:28,033 --> 00:02:32,943 It seems to glow like the image on a movie screen. 14 00:02:33,079 --> 00:02:38,618 That magical quality has mystified the world for 350 years. 15 00:02:38,708 --> 00:02:40,784 How did Vermeer do it? 16 00:02:40,877 --> 00:02:43,284 Dutch artists typically learnt by apprenticeship 17 00:02:43,379 --> 00:02:47,079 and they kept written records to prove their training. 18 00:02:47,174 --> 00:02:50,756 But no such documents have ever been found about Vermeer. 19 00:02:50,844 --> 00:02:54,923 And strangely, when you x-ray these intricate images, 20 00:02:55,014 --> 00:02:58,631 you don't find the usual artist's sketches underneath. 21 00:02:58,725 --> 00:03:02,259 It's as if Vermeer were some unfathomable genius 22 00:03:02,353 --> 00:03:07,145 who could just walk up to a canvas and magically paint with light. 23 00:03:10,151 --> 00:03:12,903 It's possible that Vermeer was using technology 24 00:03:12,987 --> 00:03:15,063 to make these beautiful paintings. 25 00:03:15,156 --> 00:03:18,987 If he did that, and, of course, there's no documentation that he did this, 26 00:03:19,076 --> 00:03:25,789 it's possible he could paint some pretty remarkable pictures without a lot of training. 27 00:03:25,873 --> 00:03:31,163 It's possible that he was more of an experimenter, 28 00:03:31,252 --> 00:03:33,624 more of a tinkerer, more of a geek. 29 00:03:33,713 --> 00:03:37,710 And, in that way, I feel a kinship with him, because I'm a computer graphics guy, 30 00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:41,298 and we use technology to make a realistic, beautiful image, 31 00:03:41,386 --> 00:03:44,137 and it's possible that's exactly what Vermeer was doing. 32 00:03:45,681 --> 00:03:48,682 Tim Jenison is not a painter, he's an inventor. 33 00:03:48,809 --> 00:03:52,058 He's always had a talent for figuring out how things work. 34 00:03:52,145 --> 00:03:56,059 When Tim was growing up in lowa, he got a broken player piano, 35 00:03:56,148 --> 00:03:58,817 repaired it, and taught himself to play swing music 36 00:03:58,901 --> 00:04:03,277 by slowing down the piano rolls so he could follow Fats Waller's fingers. 37 00:04:03,446 --> 00:04:06,980 Tim played keyboards in a rock band for a couple of years 38 00:04:07,074 --> 00:04:10,692 and taught himself to fix anything electronic that broke. 39 00:04:10,869 --> 00:04:12,363 The amazing wizard! 40 00:04:12,537 --> 00:04:14,862 He got married, had a family, 41 00:04:14,956 --> 00:04:19,083 and built a business repairing pinball machines and video games. 42 00:04:19,209 --> 00:04:23,621 Then, around 1990, he invented a way to turn personal computers 43 00:04:23,713 --> 00:04:26,204 into TVstudios for live broadcasting. 44 00:04:26,549 --> 00:04:30,000 He called it the Video Toaster, and it won him an Emmy. 45 00:04:30,093 --> 00:04:33,592 That led him to other amazing achievements like LightWave, 46 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:36,170 a program for rendering 3D images, 47 00:04:36,265 --> 00:04:40,559 which won an Emmy for his company, NewTek, in 2003. 48 00:04:40,894 --> 00:04:43,811 Tim's now based in San Antonio, Texas, 49 00:04:43,897 --> 00:04:46,518 and his company produces the TriCaster, 50 00:04:46,607 --> 00:04:50,190 used in broadcast, web, and live performance. 51 00:04:50,903 --> 00:04:54,852 All this has given Tim the money and free time to make things like this, 52 00:04:56,616 --> 00:04:58,822 Frankie, his lip-syncing duck. 53 00:05:02,079 --> 00:05:07,582 A plane made entirely of stuff from a home improvement store. 54 00:05:07,667 --> 00:05:08,698 It's an electric moth. 55 00:05:08,793 --> 00:05:10,500 His electric moth. 56 00:05:10,586 --> 00:05:14,369 As you raise the light, it comes up off the floor, 57 00:05:14,464 --> 00:05:17,963 and it stays at exactly the same distance under the light. 58 00:05:19,301 --> 00:05:21,128 And this. 59 00:05:32,062 --> 00:05:35,727 Here's the pipe organ Tim put together from four different churches. 60 00:05:35,815 --> 00:05:38,436 Once I got started, you have to have more pipes, 61 00:05:38,526 --> 00:05:42,143 because it's never quite enough, so I've got three pipe organs here, 62 00:05:42,279 --> 00:05:45,647 plus an electronic organ that I'm using for the keyboard. 63 00:05:45,740 --> 00:05:49,073 Tim and I have been friends for a really long time. 64 00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:52,077 If there was an artist, he would draw it, what you see... 65 00:05:52,162 --> 00:05:54,914 We've cried together at space shuttle launches. 66 00:05:54,998 --> 00:05:57,239 We flew his Learjet down to Cabo San Lucas 67 00:05:57,333 --> 00:05:59,906 to see the total eclipse of the sun. 68 00:06:00,002 --> 00:06:01,876 So, the devil's in there. 69 00:06:01,962 --> 00:06:06,090 This is Penn, the last day he was able to see 70 00:06:06,174 --> 00:06:10,041 before he lost God's most precious gift looking at the eclipse. 71 00:06:10,845 --> 00:06:13,928 Tim's been weightless in an astronaut-training plane 72 00:06:14,014 --> 00:06:16,469 and he arranged for me to try it, too. 73 00:06:16,558 --> 00:06:19,843 I vomited into my own hair. 74 00:06:19,936 --> 00:06:24,264 Tim was not and is not a painter. 75 00:06:24,523 --> 00:06:28,816 So I didn't know he had this whole little sub-obsession 76 00:06:28,901 --> 00:06:31,474 with Vermeer. 77 00:06:31,695 --> 00:06:35,775 Tim's Vermeer project started 11 years back, in 2002, 78 00:06:35,866 --> 00:06:40,278 when his daughter gave him a copy of David Hockney's book, Secret Knowledge. 79 00:06:40,369 --> 00:06:44,616 Hockney wrote that when pictures started to look less like this, 80 00:06:44,706 --> 00:06:46,284 and more like this, 81 00:06:46,374 --> 00:06:49,957 that was because artists had found new tools to help them. 82 00:06:50,044 --> 00:06:55,204 In 17th-century Holland, high quality lenses and mirrors were in use everywhere. 83 00:06:55,299 --> 00:06:57,457 Telescopes were all the rage 84 00:06:57,550 --> 00:07:02,425 and science hobbyists were experimenting with ways to project live images. 85 00:07:02,513 --> 00:07:05,466 Hockney challenged conventional wisdom by suggesting 86 00:07:05,557 --> 00:07:09,257 that when artists of Vermeer's day began to paint more accurately, 87 00:07:09,352 --> 00:07:13,396 they were no longer using just their eyes and their imaginations. 88 00:07:13,481 --> 00:07:18,023 They were secretly getting help from optical machines, like the camera obscura. 89 00:07:18,109 --> 00:07:22,486 Camera obscura is Latin for "dark room". 90 00:07:22,697 --> 00:07:24,488 Build a box, any size. 91 00:07:24,573 --> 00:07:26,482 Could be the size of a shoebox, 92 00:07:26,575 --> 00:07:29,445 but let's make this one big enough to stand inside. 93 00:07:29,536 --> 00:07:31,409 It's a dark room. 94 00:07:31,537 --> 00:07:35,830 Drill a little hole in one side of the box and you see something surprising. 95 00:07:35,916 --> 00:07:39,450 The image of whatever is outside the box, in the light, 96 00:07:39,544 --> 00:07:44,620 is projected on the wall opposite the hole, only it's upside down and backwards. 97 00:07:44,757 --> 00:07:48,836 You can make the image brighter and clearer by putting a lens in the hole, 98 00:07:48,927 --> 00:07:51,797 and you can change the size of the image on the wall 99 00:07:51,888 --> 00:07:55,090 by changing the curvature and position of the lens. 100 00:07:57,893 --> 00:08:00,727 Here's David Hockney on a TVspecial. 101 00:08:00,812 --> 00:08:03,100 He's inside a camera obscura, 102 00:08:03,189 --> 00:08:07,435 tracing the image of a live model projected through a lens. 103 00:08:10,028 --> 00:08:11,937 Hockney was mostly focused on 104 00:08:12,030 --> 00:08:15,445 how a painter could have traced images through a lens. 105 00:08:16,283 --> 00:08:21,988 To me, what was most striking about the Vermeers, as a video guy, 106 00:08:22,080 --> 00:08:25,282 I'm looking at this image, and I see a video signal. 107 00:08:25,374 --> 00:08:30,534 I see something that looks like it came out of a video camera. 108 00:08:30,629 --> 00:08:35,539 So I thought about how a painter could actually copy that. 109 00:08:35,633 --> 00:08:40,875 Now, most people that have played with a camera obscura 110 00:08:40,971 --> 00:08:45,513 got the idea that they could take that projected image and somehow paint on it. 111 00:08:45,641 --> 00:08:49,638 Well, I've tried that and a lot of people have tried it, it's impossible. 112 00:08:49,770 --> 00:08:53,019 What happens is it actually fights you, it works against you, 113 00:08:53,106 --> 00:08:54,564 it's worse than nothing at all. 114 00:08:55,232 --> 00:08:57,439 Painting on a projection just doesn't work. 115 00:08:57,526 --> 00:09:01,108 Here's a blue that matches very closely the blue in the projection. 116 00:09:01,196 --> 00:09:03,069 Imagine this is wet paint. 117 00:09:03,156 --> 00:09:07,200 When you put it into the projection, it looks way too dark. 118 00:09:07,326 --> 00:09:09,567 On the other hand, here's a perfect match. 119 00:09:09,661 --> 00:09:12,827 The colour that matches the projected colour just right. 120 00:09:12,914 --> 00:09:15,950 The only colour that'll ever do that is white. 121 00:09:18,919 --> 00:09:21,623 Tim went around the world studying Vermeer. 122 00:09:26,676 --> 00:09:29,510 They called it "painting with light." Vermeer "painted with light." 123 00:09:29,595 --> 00:09:32,132 You can't paint with light, you have to paint with paint. 124 00:09:32,222 --> 00:09:37,927 And so what they're really talking about is this verisimilitude that Vermeer has, 125 00:09:38,018 --> 00:09:41,434 that it just pops. 126 00:09:41,521 --> 00:09:46,266 You see it from across the room and it looks like a slide, 127 00:09:46,359 --> 00:09:49,359 it looks like a colour slide of Kodachrome. 128 00:10:10,504 --> 00:10:14,501 Seeing the Vermeers in person was a revelation. 129 00:10:14,591 --> 00:10:17,840 It reinforced to me that I was on the right track. 130 00:10:17,927 --> 00:10:23,466 That what I was seeing was an accurate representation of the colour in that room. 131 00:10:25,808 --> 00:10:32,474 I just had a hunch that there must be a way to actually get the colours accurate, 132 00:10:32,564 --> 00:10:33,975 with mechanical means. 133 00:10:34,065 --> 00:10:36,307 Some way you could do that in the 17th century. 134 00:10:36,526 --> 00:10:41,816 I remember just having this vague idea of comparing two colours with a mirror, 135 00:10:41,905 --> 00:10:44,443 and it didn't go any farther than that for a long time. 136 00:10:44,532 --> 00:10:45,813 Sitting in the bathtub, 137 00:10:45,909 --> 00:10:48,992 you know, that's I guess where you have your eureka moments, 138 00:10:49,078 --> 00:10:52,612 but, I don't know, there's something about bath water... 139 00:10:52,706 --> 00:10:54,579 It's just very, very relaxing. 140 00:10:54,666 --> 00:10:58,745 And I was just picturing that mirror hanging there in space, 141 00:10:58,836 --> 00:11:02,252 and I pictured what I would see, and there it was. 142 00:11:02,339 --> 00:11:07,000 And so I grabbed a piece of paper, being careful not to get it wet, 143 00:11:07,093 --> 00:11:10,793 made a sketch, and that was where I realised 144 00:11:10,888 --> 00:11:14,932 Vermeer could have used a mirror to paint those paintings. 145 00:11:19,103 --> 00:11:23,764 To test this I propped up a high school photograph of my father-in-law on the table. 146 00:11:23,857 --> 00:11:26,811 I put a piece of Masonite down here to paint on. 147 00:11:26,901 --> 00:11:30,768 I set a small mirror at a 45-degree angle. 148 00:11:32,448 --> 00:11:36,148 And for the first time in my life, I did just what Vermeer may have done. 149 00:11:36,284 --> 00:11:39,735 I picked up some oil paints and a brush. 150 00:11:39,829 --> 00:11:42,201 In Vermeer's camera this would be a projection, 151 00:11:42,289 --> 00:11:44,282 a lens is projecting this image. 152 00:11:44,374 --> 00:11:47,873 But to show the actual mirror painting process, 153 00:11:47,961 --> 00:11:49,419 we're using a photograph here. 154 00:11:49,504 --> 00:11:55,007 You can see that there's a reflection, and then there's my canvas down here. 155 00:11:55,092 --> 00:11:59,302 And right at the edge of the mirror, I can see both things at once. 156 00:11:59,387 --> 00:12:01,011 I'm just going to apply paint 157 00:12:01,097 --> 00:12:05,509 and either darken or lighten the paint until it's the same exact colour. 158 00:12:05,600 --> 00:12:08,767 And at that point, when it's exactly the same colour, 159 00:12:08,853 --> 00:12:10,845 the edge of the mirror will disappear. 160 00:12:10,938 --> 00:12:15,018 All right, and I'm an idiot at this, 161 00:12:15,108 --> 00:12:20,647 I have done this process exactly twice in my life before. 162 00:12:23,073 --> 00:12:26,940 What I'm doing is I'm moving my head up and down 163 00:12:27,035 --> 00:12:30,735 so that I can see first the original and then my canvas. 164 00:12:30,830 --> 00:12:34,115 I'm looking at both things at the same time. 165 00:12:34,208 --> 00:12:36,580 Right on the forehead, you can see that they match, 166 00:12:36,668 --> 00:12:38,993 because you can't really see the edge of the mirror. 167 00:12:39,087 --> 00:12:42,253 That's, that's your clue that you've matched the paint exactly. 168 00:12:42,340 --> 00:12:46,040 It's not subjective, it's objective. 169 00:12:46,134 --> 00:12:50,630 I'm a piece of human photographic film at that point. 170 00:12:53,557 --> 00:12:56,344 What you're doing here is you're essentially blending? 171 00:12:56,435 --> 00:13:03,053 Yep, I am either darkening or lightening the paint that's already on the surface. 172 00:13:03,149 --> 00:13:06,849 You aren't tracing any lines, 'cause there are no lines. 173 00:13:06,944 --> 00:13:11,818 Yeah, that's a characteristic of the Vermeers that makes them unusual, 174 00:13:11,906 --> 00:13:13,448 is that there weren't lines, 175 00:13:13,532 --> 00:13:16,782 and there weren't any lines drawn underneath the paint either. 176 00:13:17,619 --> 00:13:20,952 It looks like there's these blobs that are emerging into a picture. 177 00:13:21,039 --> 00:13:22,948 It doesn't look like... 178 00:13:23,040 --> 00:13:26,456 The order you're doing stuff in is not a... 179 00:13:26,543 --> 00:13:28,251 It's not being done mentally. 180 00:13:28,337 --> 00:13:29,416 No, it's... 181 00:13:29,504 --> 00:13:31,295 And that's what's so nutty about it. 182 00:13:31,381 --> 00:13:35,248 You know, if I was better at this, it may be more systematic, 183 00:13:35,342 --> 00:13:38,711 I may evolve into doing it more systematically, but... 184 00:13:38,804 --> 00:13:40,511 No matter what I've tried, 185 00:13:40,597 --> 00:13:44,890 if I just spend enough time comparing the mirror to the canvas 186 00:13:44,975 --> 00:13:49,304 and stirring the paint around, it ends up looking like a photograph. 187 00:13:54,650 --> 00:13:57,900 And this was the result of Tim's experiment, 188 00:13:57,986 --> 00:14:00,559 it took him five hours. 189 00:14:03,241 --> 00:14:05,992 Not bad for a first oil painting. 190 00:14:14,208 --> 00:14:19,794 The father-in-law picture was proof enough in my mind that Vermeer probably did this. 191 00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:25,039 However, my father-in-law doesn't look like a 17th-century Dutch woman, 192 00:14:25,134 --> 00:14:29,961 so I don't think it would be very convincing evidence for a lot of people. 193 00:14:30,055 --> 00:14:34,052 So, I thought the best way would be to really do a Vermeer. 194 00:14:34,142 --> 00:14:37,640 I had the suspicion that it was exactly the same thing. 195 00:14:37,728 --> 00:14:40,764 If I could do the father-in-law, I could paint a Vermeer. 196 00:14:40,856 --> 00:14:45,019 It seemed to me the most powerful demonstration of the idea. 197 00:14:45,109 --> 00:14:50,529 The reason I chose The Music Lesson is probably because, of all the paintings, 198 00:14:50,614 --> 00:14:54,658 I think The Music Lesson is a great little laboratory, 199 00:14:54,742 --> 00:14:59,404 because it's so complete and so self-contained. 200 00:14:59,496 --> 00:15:02,616 You know where the windows are, you know how big the windows are, 201 00:15:02,707 --> 00:15:06,158 you can reconstruct the harpsichord independent of the painting, 202 00:15:06,252 --> 00:15:10,960 the Spanish chair, the viola da gamba, the rug, all these things could be procured, 203 00:15:11,048 --> 00:15:16,172 and their appearance is gonna be what it is, independent of Vermeer's painting. 204 00:15:18,679 --> 00:15:22,178 It's a little scientific experiment waiting to happen. 205 00:15:28,020 --> 00:15:29,929 Before Tim went to all that trouble, 206 00:15:30,022 --> 00:15:32,939 we thought he should run his idea by a working artist. 207 00:15:33,024 --> 00:15:34,269 So we called up our friend, 208 00:15:34,359 --> 00:15:37,608 Los Angeles-based painter and entertainer, Martin Mull, 209 00:15:37,695 --> 00:15:42,440 and asked him to meet Tim at a studio in Las Vegas and see his gizmo. 210 00:15:42,532 --> 00:15:45,070 Oh, my God. 211 00:15:45,160 --> 00:15:48,610 Oh, my God. 212 00:15:52,165 --> 00:15:53,446 Holy cow. 213 00:15:53,542 --> 00:15:57,206 Took me about half an hour to learn how to operate a paintbrush. 214 00:15:57,295 --> 00:16:00,628 Good for you, it took me 40 years. 215 00:16:00,714 --> 00:16:06,384 Well, and the beauty of this technique is that you can make mistakes 216 00:16:06,469 --> 00:16:10,632 and see what you did wrong instantly and try to fix it. 217 00:16:10,723 --> 00:16:12,680 This is astounding. 218 00:16:12,766 --> 00:16:14,557 So this is a camera obscura, 219 00:16:14,643 --> 00:16:19,138 typical of the type that could be found in the 1600's. 220 00:16:19,230 --> 00:16:22,396 This type of camera obscura is called a "box camera obscura". 221 00:16:22,483 --> 00:16:24,724 It generally had a ground glass like this. 222 00:16:24,818 --> 00:16:28,151 It has the ability to refocus by moving the lens in and out. 223 00:16:28,237 --> 00:16:32,021 The general consensus of people that believe Vermeer used optics 224 00:16:32,116 --> 00:16:36,860 was that he may have looked at that image and been inspired by it. 225 00:16:36,953 --> 00:16:37,984 Yeah. 226 00:16:38,079 --> 00:16:39,193 And that's the end of the story. 227 00:16:42,082 --> 00:16:44,655 So now that we know there's a way to copy the colours exactly, 228 00:16:44,751 --> 00:16:46,660 I'm proposing an alternate history of Vermeer. 229 00:16:46,753 --> 00:16:47,784 Okay. 230 00:16:47,879 --> 00:16:50,001 His father's an art dealer, he knows something about art, 231 00:16:50,089 --> 00:16:51,631 he wants to make a painting. 232 00:16:52,007 --> 00:16:53,466 He looks at this image... 233 00:16:53,550 --> 00:16:54,629 Okay. 234 00:16:54,718 --> 00:16:56,924 There's my daughter, Natalie. 235 00:16:57,178 --> 00:17:01,507 What if Vermeer took the camera, turned it sideways, and now it's vertical, 236 00:17:01,599 --> 00:17:04,172 - like my father-in-law picture. - Okay. 237 00:17:05,268 --> 00:17:07,640 He takes his canvas, 238 00:17:09,272 --> 00:17:13,221 and, the secret ingredient, 239 00:17:13,317 --> 00:17:14,479 the mirror. 240 00:17:14,568 --> 00:17:15,943 He positions the mirror here. 241 00:17:16,027 --> 00:17:17,687 Which corrects the inversion? 242 00:17:17,779 --> 00:17:20,020 - Yeah, it brings it back... - And everything... 243 00:17:20,114 --> 00:17:23,483 And there it is! Clear as can be. 244 00:17:23,575 --> 00:17:27,655 So if he's in his living room, he puts up some curtains, 245 00:17:27,746 --> 00:17:28,990 controls the light, 246 00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:32,116 and now picks up his brush and starts to paint. 247 00:17:33,709 --> 00:17:38,287 My guess is that the Girl with the Red Hat is that first painting. 248 00:17:38,380 --> 00:17:40,835 - Wow. - It's painted over the top of another painting. 249 00:17:40,923 --> 00:17:43,877 We can x-ray it and see that there's something else underneath, 250 00:17:43,968 --> 00:17:45,960 so maybe this was just a throwaway experiment. 251 00:18:00,732 --> 00:18:03,222 So I understand, Tim, that when you go back to Texas, 252 00:18:03,317 --> 00:18:09,817 you're going to construct a replica of the exact room where Vermeer painted? 253 00:18:09,906 --> 00:18:11,020 Yeah. 254 00:18:11,115 --> 00:18:17,235 And you're going to do a painting in his stead, 255 00:18:17,329 --> 00:18:18,574 am I right? 256 00:18:18,663 --> 00:18:19,742 Yep. 257 00:18:19,831 --> 00:18:23,413 Many of Vermeer's paintings appear to have been painted in the same room, 258 00:18:23,501 --> 00:18:25,244 likely the north-facing room 259 00:18:25,336 --> 00:18:28,004 on the second floor of the house Vermeer lived in. 260 00:18:28,088 --> 00:18:31,670 That's the room Tim plans to construct. 261 00:18:31,799 --> 00:18:37,919 I really hope to see firsthand what Vermeer was up against, 262 00:18:38,013 --> 00:18:40,338 if he was using this technique. 263 00:18:42,308 --> 00:18:47,728 And try to get some idea 264 00:18:47,813 --> 00:18:49,639 of how long it would take, 265 00:18:49,731 --> 00:18:52,304 just to get the conditions right... 266 00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:55,603 Just mundane things like how much usable lighting do you get in a day. 267 00:18:55,694 --> 00:18:57,568 So you're not going to use any artificial light. 268 00:18:57,654 --> 00:18:58,733 That's right. 269 00:18:58,822 --> 00:19:02,404 And I'm only going to use materials that Vermeer would have had. 270 00:19:02,492 --> 00:19:03,571 Okay. 271 00:19:03,659 --> 00:19:06,150 So, I'm going to force myself into the constraint 272 00:19:06,245 --> 00:19:10,871 of having to grind the pigments and, you know, make the paint, 273 00:19:10,957 --> 00:19:15,037 and use only pigments that he had access to or that he used in his paintings. 274 00:19:15,127 --> 00:19:19,670 For his experiment, Tim wanted to recreate, as closely as possible, 275 00:19:19,756 --> 00:19:22,329 the conditions that Vermeer was working with. 276 00:19:22,425 --> 00:19:25,212 Back then you couldn't just run down to the paint store 277 00:19:25,303 --> 00:19:26,796 and pick up a tube of paint, 278 00:19:26,887 --> 00:19:30,053 so Tim had to learn how to grind and mix the pigments, 279 00:19:30,140 --> 00:19:33,140 which I'm now talking about something I know nothing about, 280 00:19:33,226 --> 00:19:37,057 but of grinding the pigments and adding in the oil 281 00:19:37,187 --> 00:19:38,765 and however you make paint. 282 00:19:38,856 --> 00:19:41,856 If it were left to me to make paint, there would be no paint. 283 00:19:43,067 --> 00:19:44,858 I also learnt how to make lenses. 284 00:19:44,944 --> 00:19:47,731 I couldn't use a modern lens, they're too good. 285 00:19:47,821 --> 00:19:49,150 So I had to build one. 286 00:19:49,239 --> 00:19:53,402 So I had to make the form on a lathe, I had to melt the glass, 287 00:19:53,493 --> 00:19:56,992 I had to polish it with various grades of abrasives, 288 00:19:57,079 --> 00:20:00,863 just the way they made lenses in the 17th century. 289 00:20:00,957 --> 00:20:03,115 To be sure he was getting everything right, 290 00:20:03,209 --> 00:20:06,376 Tim took some time off of work to fly to Holland. 291 00:20:06,462 --> 00:20:09,712 He visited Delft, the city where Vermeer had lived, 292 00:20:09,798 --> 00:20:12,253 and studied the light and the architecture. 293 00:20:12,342 --> 00:20:15,841 So this is it, this is where Vermeer painted those magical light pictures. 294 00:20:15,928 --> 00:20:19,213 He learnt to read Dutch, he consulted with experts, 295 00:20:19,306 --> 00:20:23,599 measured furniture in museums, and immersed himself in Vermeer's world. 296 00:20:30,983 --> 00:20:33,604 All right, so move it in. Okay, good. 297 00:20:54,919 --> 00:20:59,415 I would like to get one exactly like this. Do you think you could make one? 298 00:20:59,507 --> 00:21:00,704 That's possible, yes. 299 00:21:27,572 --> 00:21:31,900 When he got back to San Antonio, Tim rented a warehouse that faced North, 300 00:21:31,992 --> 00:21:33,534 just like Vermeer's studio, 301 00:21:33,618 --> 00:21:36,489 and invited Professor Philip Steadman over from London 302 00:21:36,579 --> 00:21:38,737 to look over his experiment. 303 00:21:38,831 --> 00:21:42,081 While some believe that Vermeer painted from his imagination, 304 00:21:42,167 --> 00:21:46,247 Steadman found evidence that Vermeer used optics. 305 00:21:46,337 --> 00:21:49,421 Steadman is the author of Vermeer's Camera. 306 00:21:49,507 --> 00:21:53,089 In this book, Steadman analyses six of Vermeer's paintings 307 00:21:53,177 --> 00:21:55,928 to determine the layout of Vermeer's studio. 308 00:21:56,012 --> 00:21:58,254 Then he uses geometry to figure out 309 00:21:58,348 --> 00:22:01,514 where the lens in a camera obscura would have to go 310 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:04,055 to match each painting's viewpoint. 311 00:22:04,144 --> 00:22:07,927 Now he calculates the size of the projection on Vermeer's back wall, 312 00:22:08,022 --> 00:22:12,315 and compares that to the size of the corresponding painting. 313 00:22:13,944 --> 00:22:17,229 For all six, the sizes match exactly. 314 00:22:18,281 --> 00:22:21,317 It doesn't seem like that would happen by chance. 315 00:22:21,784 --> 00:22:25,235 Pretty convincing evidence that Vermeer used a lens. 316 00:22:27,414 --> 00:22:29,322 Well, tell me about what you're doing. 317 00:22:29,415 --> 00:22:32,451 Steadman's discovery fit perfectly with Tim's mirror, 318 00:22:32,543 --> 00:22:35,164 so now Tim set up a test that would use both. 319 00:22:35,253 --> 00:22:38,586 And this, we will make an attempt at painting this. 320 00:22:38,673 --> 00:22:40,831 - Okay. - Using the mirror. 321 00:22:40,925 --> 00:22:42,383 So, now let's go inside the booth. 322 00:22:42,468 --> 00:22:43,463 Yeah. 323 00:22:43,552 --> 00:22:45,794 He and Steadman would try to paint a jug 324 00:22:45,887 --> 00:22:49,635 using his comparator mirror inside a camera obscura, 325 00:22:49,724 --> 00:22:52,096 as Tim thought Vermeer had done. 326 00:22:55,979 --> 00:22:57,603 They take turns painting. 327 00:22:57,731 --> 00:23:00,304 It doesn't matter who does the brushstrokes, 328 00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:02,273 the process is objective, 329 00:23:02,360 --> 00:23:05,858 and any painter who uses it, gets the same result. 330 00:23:10,283 --> 00:23:12,952 David Hockney's book came out just after mine. 331 00:23:13,035 --> 00:23:14,992 What do you remember about the reaction? 332 00:23:15,079 --> 00:23:20,072 There was quite a controversy around both books, wasn't there? 333 00:23:20,166 --> 00:23:22,242 Enormous, yes, yes. 334 00:23:22,335 --> 00:23:27,577 There was a lot of upset, a really deep anguish amongst the art historians. 335 00:23:27,672 --> 00:23:31,966 The painters were relaxed. 336 00:23:32,093 --> 00:23:36,006 They said, you know, "This is a technology, fine, okay." 337 00:23:36,096 --> 00:23:41,849 But there was something, a really deep hurt amongst some of the art historians 338 00:23:41,934 --> 00:23:47,355 which was to do with intrusion of amateurs and crass rationalists 339 00:23:47,439 --> 00:23:50,689 into the preserves of art history. 340 00:23:50,775 --> 00:23:55,686 It was to do with a misunderstanding of the nature of art 341 00:23:55,779 --> 00:23:58,614 and cheating and genius, 342 00:23:58,698 --> 00:24:03,525 and the idea that an optical method is some sort of cheat, 343 00:24:03,619 --> 00:24:05,327 because these are very accurate, measured perspectives. 344 00:24:05,412 --> 00:24:10,239 So, there are two ways you can do them. You can produce them optically, 345 00:24:10,583 --> 00:24:12,741 or you can set them up geometrically. 346 00:24:13,211 --> 00:24:18,002 If you set them up geometrically, you're using the standard methods, 347 00:24:18,090 --> 00:24:21,292 it's a machine, it's an algorithm, you apply the rules. 348 00:24:21,384 --> 00:24:23,044 Why is that not cheating? 349 00:24:23,136 --> 00:24:25,673 - Exactly. - Strange, isn't it? 350 00:24:27,514 --> 00:24:31,891 So, the only legitimate way to make a painting is to just walk up to the canvas, 351 00:24:31,976 --> 00:24:34,549 and alla prima paint it. 352 00:24:34,645 --> 00:24:38,263 But the reason it isn't cheating is that it's hard. 353 00:24:38,357 --> 00:24:40,598 - Yes. - It's geometry, it's mathematics. 354 00:24:40,692 --> 00:24:43,895 - Well, this certainly is not easy. - This is not easy, no. 355 00:24:43,986 --> 00:24:47,437 - If Vermeer did this, it wasn't a time saver. - No, indeed. 356 00:24:47,531 --> 00:24:53,900 I can't comprehend that someone could paint that from their imagination. 357 00:24:55,162 --> 00:24:56,241 No. Of course not. 358 00:24:56,330 --> 00:24:59,117 A human being is pretty remarkable sometimes. 359 00:24:59,208 --> 00:25:03,121 To get objects at their true sizes, 360 00:25:03,211 --> 00:25:08,168 and to get all the kind of luminous effects... 361 00:25:08,257 --> 00:25:13,167 Painters can do miraculous things, it's difficult to say, "This is impossible," 362 00:25:13,261 --> 00:25:17,044 but some things are more impossible than others. 363 00:25:30,108 --> 00:25:32,943 I was gonna go right off the edge there. 364 00:25:33,778 --> 00:25:34,857 So. 365 00:25:34,946 --> 00:25:38,480 - Great. Well, congratulations. - And you. 366 00:25:38,574 --> 00:25:39,819 Fantastic. 367 00:25:42,661 --> 00:25:46,989 I want to think that this simple, elegant device 368 00:25:47,081 --> 00:25:50,200 is something that Vermeer could have used. 369 00:25:50,292 --> 00:25:53,458 There's no doubt it's practical, and it's simple. 370 00:25:53,545 --> 00:25:54,920 You know, it's a plain mirror. 371 00:25:55,004 --> 00:25:57,839 This is a 17th-century technology, they knew all about mirrors, 372 00:25:57,923 --> 00:26:01,921 and you can imagine him perhaps thinking of something like what Tim has thought of, 373 00:26:02,010 --> 00:26:05,509 but we know nothing from a documentary point of view 374 00:26:05,597 --> 00:26:08,383 of how Vermeer worked, there are no descriptions by him, 375 00:26:08,474 --> 00:26:11,759 by other people, there are no drawings... 376 00:26:11,852 --> 00:26:13,643 We know very little about his life. 377 00:26:13,728 --> 00:26:18,935 So the only real source of information to answer a question like that 378 00:26:19,024 --> 00:26:20,602 would be the paintings themselves. 379 00:26:20,693 --> 00:26:23,361 Using Tim's device, it isn't easy, 380 00:26:23,445 --> 00:26:27,193 but somehow it does turn you into a machine. 381 00:26:27,281 --> 00:26:30,448 You become a machine. Was Vermeer a machine? 382 00:26:31,827 --> 00:26:35,776 Maybe Vermeer was strong-minded enough to think, "I'll become a machine". 383 00:26:38,332 --> 00:26:39,874 That little picture of the jug 384 00:26:39,959 --> 00:26:43,659 took Tim and Steadman eight and a half hours to paint, 385 00:26:43,754 --> 00:26:45,545 and Tim's method worked. 386 00:26:45,630 --> 00:26:49,378 But they were painting in black and white, and using powerful electric light 387 00:26:49,467 --> 00:26:52,218 that wouldn't have been around in Vermeer's day. 388 00:26:52,302 --> 00:26:55,718 Would Tim's mirror work well enough to paint The Music Lesson, 389 00:26:55,805 --> 00:26:58,557 in full colour, in natural light? 390 00:26:58,641 --> 00:27:02,887 To find that out Tim would need Vermeer's room, and everything in it. 391 00:27:03,478 --> 00:27:09,729 But museums don't loan stuff from the 1600s to video engineers with a wacky hobby. 392 00:27:10,985 --> 00:27:14,733 It would be nice if I could have hired somebody to build all this 393 00:27:14,821 --> 00:27:17,110 but it was kind of an interactive process, 394 00:27:17,198 --> 00:27:22,571 you know, I had to first model the room in LightWave 3D, 395 00:27:23,829 --> 00:27:27,612 working from the painting to get the dimensions and the shapes right. 396 00:27:27,707 --> 00:27:31,122 Even though it was a lot of work, it was just easier for me to do it, 397 00:27:31,210 --> 00:27:33,202 because as I went I could make sure 398 00:27:33,295 --> 00:27:36,498 that the furniture looked like the furniture in the Vermeers. 399 00:27:36,923 --> 00:27:39,295 But Tim is not a dressmaker. 400 00:27:39,717 --> 00:27:40,880 Or a framer. 401 00:27:41,510 --> 00:27:43,716 Or a carpenter. Upholsterer. 402 00:27:44,137 --> 00:27:45,217 Glazier. 403 00:27:46,056 --> 00:27:49,175 Builder of virginals, which is a type of harpsichord. 404 00:27:49,517 --> 00:27:50,762 Metalsmith. 405 00:27:50,851 --> 00:27:52,132 Furniture maker. 406 00:27:52,228 --> 00:27:53,722 Plasterer. 407 00:27:53,854 --> 00:27:55,016 Tile layer. 408 00:27:55,105 --> 00:27:57,346 Or a lens maker. 409 00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,065 But he's not an artist either. 410 00:27:59,567 --> 00:28:02,733 He used what he was, a technologist, 411 00:28:02,820 --> 00:28:05,524 to help him become all those things he wasn't, 412 00:28:05,614 --> 00:28:08,401 so that he could build his room. 413 00:28:48,567 --> 00:28:49,811 This is fun. 414 00:28:50,818 --> 00:28:56,737 I mean, this is the real thing. 415 00:29:45,072 --> 00:29:47,610 Is it safe for there to be that much smoke? 416 00:29:47,699 --> 00:29:50,190 I don't know, I've never done this before! 417 00:29:50,285 --> 00:29:52,610 Could it heat up and catch fire? 418 00:29:52,704 --> 00:29:57,080 - Well, I guess. I don't know. - Whatever! 419 00:29:57,166 --> 00:29:59,621 It's kind of cool. Okay, here we go. 420 00:30:27,399 --> 00:30:30,684 Okay, I got a problem with the virginals leg. 421 00:30:30,777 --> 00:30:34,193 It's supposed to be 36 and a half inches long, 422 00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:38,692 but my lathe only goes 423 00:30:39,701 --> 00:30:42,488 about 34 inches. 424 00:30:42,829 --> 00:30:45,367 I mean, I could make the leg in two pieces. 425 00:30:45,456 --> 00:30:48,872 But I think what I'm gonna do is I'm going to cut the lathe in two. 426 00:31:00,636 --> 00:31:06,839 Generally, you don't take a fine precision machine tool and saw it in half, 427 00:31:07,266 --> 00:31:10,432 but power tools are made to be jury-rigged. 428 00:31:57,934 --> 00:31:59,392 Yeah, it's a big guitar. 429 00:32:02,437 --> 00:32:08,226 Viola da gamba is called a "viola da gamba" because "gamba" means leg, 430 00:32:08,693 --> 00:32:10,768 and you play it between your legs. 431 00:32:22,454 --> 00:32:23,569 I like it. 432 00:32:46,349 --> 00:32:48,342 I don't know much about woodworking. 433 00:32:50,478 --> 00:32:56,729 So I'm doing this, not out of love for woodworking, 434 00:32:56,816 --> 00:32:58,441 but out of necessity 435 00:32:58,526 --> 00:33:04,694 because you just can't buy these stupid chairs anywhere, 436 00:33:04,781 --> 00:33:06,275 and I need one. 437 00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,853 David Hockney is one of Britain's greatest artists. 438 00:34:33,939 --> 00:34:36,560 He's famous for paintings like this. 439 00:34:36,650 --> 00:34:40,232 Since his optical theory got Tim started on this journey, 440 00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:44,531 he seemed the ideal person for Tim to talk to. 441 00:34:44,615 --> 00:34:48,114 Hockney invited us to visit, so we all went to England. 442 00:34:50,662 --> 00:34:56,248 What I knew about David Hockney was that he was a famous artist. 443 00:34:56,333 --> 00:34:59,832 But, reading his book, I could see that he wasn't a typical artist, 444 00:34:59,920 --> 00:35:03,169 that he was somewhat a scientist. 445 00:35:03,423 --> 00:35:07,883 Philip Steadman and David Hockney, to my mind, 446 00:35:09,261 --> 00:35:11,633 to the mind of a sceptic, 447 00:35:11,721 --> 00:35:18,470 prove that Vermeer used some sort of device. 448 00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:24,313 But Secret Knowledge, and all the Philip Steadman work, 449 00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:30,442 are this wonderful, exciting, tingly whodunit, that never tells you who did it. 450 00:35:30,946 --> 00:35:33,863 Hockney showed that artists were using lenses. 451 00:35:33,948 --> 00:35:36,569 Steadman argued that Vermeer was using a lens. 452 00:35:36,659 --> 00:35:40,442 I believed that Vermeer must have been using more than just a lens. 453 00:35:40,537 --> 00:35:44,451 The reason to go see Hockney was to bounce this idea off him 454 00:35:44,540 --> 00:35:46,912 and see if he thought it was plausible. 455 00:35:47,293 --> 00:35:49,748 How did you figure this out? What are you, a... 456 00:35:49,836 --> 00:35:52,753 Well, I started thinking about it after I read your book, and... 457 00:35:52,839 --> 00:35:54,796 Are you an optical... I mean... 458 00:35:54,882 --> 00:35:56,211 I design television equipment. 459 00:35:56,300 --> 00:35:57,628 - That's my job. - I see. 460 00:35:57,718 --> 00:36:01,762 So I know a bit about colour and imagery. 461 00:36:01,847 --> 00:36:05,974 And I suspected looking at these old pictures from the Golden Age, 462 00:36:06,058 --> 00:36:11,099 Caravaggio, Vermeer, van Eyck, 463 00:36:11,188 --> 00:36:16,561 that there must have been a way to copy the tones. 464 00:36:16,692 --> 00:36:20,392 Because that's what's quite remarkable, actually. Yes, it is. 465 00:36:20,487 --> 00:36:23,653 I need to stand on that side of the table for a second. 466 00:36:23,740 --> 00:36:27,073 So it's a mirror on a stick. 467 00:36:27,159 --> 00:36:28,190 All right. 468 00:36:28,285 --> 00:36:32,993 This is what I saw when I was painting, if you look straight down. 469 00:36:33,164 --> 00:36:35,370 And of course I started with a blank... 470 00:36:35,458 --> 00:36:36,786 I see, yes. Yeah, yeah. 471 00:36:36,876 --> 00:36:41,087 And you can move your head up and down and you can see different parts of the image. 472 00:36:41,171 --> 00:36:44,753 And that's how you work your way from one part to the other. 473 00:36:44,841 --> 00:36:49,965 Now right at the edge of the mirror, where you see both images, 474 00:36:50,054 --> 00:36:53,837 you can do a direct comparison of the tone. 475 00:36:53,932 --> 00:36:55,260 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 476 00:36:55,350 --> 00:36:58,054 And your eye can instantly see, because they're together, 477 00:36:58,144 --> 00:37:02,057 can see any contrast, and the edge of the mirror basically disappears. 478 00:37:02,147 --> 00:37:06,014 When you have the right colour and only when you have the right colour. 479 00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:11,108 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see. This is very ingenious. 480 00:37:11,530 --> 00:37:15,361 So you notice that there is no parallax when you move your head, 481 00:37:15,450 --> 00:37:16,529 there is no shifting. 482 00:37:16,618 --> 00:37:18,526 - That's it, no. - The two images stay locked together. 483 00:37:18,619 --> 00:37:19,947 - Why is that? - Want to look through it? 484 00:37:20,037 --> 00:37:22,113 - How is that? - I know, it's very clever. 485 00:37:22,206 --> 00:37:26,831 I must say, the idea that the Italians, when you think about the Italians, 486 00:37:26,918 --> 00:37:31,413 they love pictures, the idea that they didn't use this 487 00:37:31,505 --> 00:37:36,843 because this would have been cheating, I find childish, absolutely childish. 488 00:37:36,926 --> 00:37:41,054 There's also this modern idea that art and technology must never meet. 489 00:37:41,180 --> 00:37:44,963 You know, you go to school for technology or you go to school for art 490 00:37:45,058 --> 00:37:46,766 but never for both. 491 00:37:46,851 --> 00:37:49,768 But in the Golden Age, they were one and the same person. 492 00:37:49,854 --> 00:37:50,933 Yeah. 493 00:37:51,021 --> 00:37:54,306 The interesting thing is that if this was around then, 494 00:37:54,816 --> 00:37:57,521 we are seeing photographs. 495 00:37:57,986 --> 00:38:02,362 If they were using this and exactly copying that colour. 496 00:38:02,448 --> 00:38:04,819 Yeah, well, I mean... 497 00:38:04,908 --> 00:38:08,193 - It's a photo. - Yeah. 498 00:38:08,286 --> 00:38:14,157 After seeing this, I mean, it's not a complicated piece of equipment, 499 00:38:14,249 --> 00:38:19,041 but how likely do you think it is that they may have done this? 500 00:38:19,128 --> 00:38:21,251 - I think it's very likely. - Really. 501 00:38:21,338 --> 00:38:23,829 Very likely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely likely. 502 00:38:23,924 --> 00:38:27,339 I mean, I'm pretty positive optics... 503 00:38:27,427 --> 00:38:30,593 I mean, there's no explanation for the paintings without optics. 504 00:38:33,098 --> 00:38:35,885 But, you know, historical evidence, 505 00:38:35,976 --> 00:38:41,016 it'd be great to find a lost letter from Johannes Vermeer... 506 00:38:41,105 --> 00:38:42,599 Wait a minute. 507 00:38:42,982 --> 00:38:45,519 I put a joke letter in Secret Knowledge. 508 00:38:45,609 --> 00:38:46,640 You did? 509 00:38:46,735 --> 00:38:48,015 A joke letter. 510 00:38:48,111 --> 00:38:52,986 This is what historians were looking for. From Hugo van der Goes to van Eyck. 511 00:38:55,284 --> 00:39:00,360 "Could you go to ye Brugge Mirror Supply Company" 512 00:39:00,455 --> 00:39:05,246 "and get one of those makeup mirrors for my wife, you know what I mean?" 513 00:39:06,877 --> 00:39:09,083 Well, I said, "You'll never find a letter like that." 514 00:39:09,170 --> 00:39:10,830 - Yeah. - They never wrote down... 515 00:39:10,922 --> 00:39:15,133 Van Eyck would not write down the formulas for the paint 516 00:39:16,176 --> 00:39:18,927 for the simple reason that somebody might read them. 517 00:39:19,012 --> 00:39:20,506 And there were other people 518 00:39:20,597 --> 00:39:22,221 that wouldn't write 'em down. 519 00:39:22,306 --> 00:39:27,548 People were sworn to secrecy, oaths that they took very seriously. 520 00:39:28,145 --> 00:39:31,513 You won't, you never... It's naive to think you'll find something. 521 00:39:31,606 --> 00:39:34,939 Paintings are documents, aren't they? Aren't they telling you a lot? 522 00:39:36,777 --> 00:39:38,401 Paintings are documents. 523 00:39:38,487 --> 00:39:40,894 They contain the story of their own creation. 524 00:39:40,989 --> 00:39:44,024 Every brushstroke, every layer of colour, every shadow 525 00:39:44,116 --> 00:39:46,868 represents another piece of information. 526 00:39:47,119 --> 00:39:51,745 To the trained eye, a painting can be read as accurately as any written text. 527 00:39:52,290 --> 00:39:53,867 And you don't need a trained eye 528 00:39:53,958 --> 00:39:57,457 to see that Vermeer's look different from his contemporaries. 529 00:39:57,544 --> 00:40:00,035 They look like video images. 530 00:40:00,130 --> 00:40:02,501 He painted the way a camera sees. 531 00:40:05,134 --> 00:40:06,877 Ever since photography was invented, 532 00:40:06,969 --> 00:40:10,218 people have been noticing optical things about Vermeer. 533 00:40:10,305 --> 00:40:11,633 On the Girl with the Red Hat, 534 00:40:11,723 --> 00:40:14,807 there's this lion's head in the foreground that's fuzzy. 535 00:40:14,892 --> 00:40:17,679 Your eye naturally refocuses on whatever you're looking at, 536 00:40:17,769 --> 00:40:19,228 so something in the foreground 537 00:40:19,312 --> 00:40:22,147 is not going to appear to your eye as out of focus. 538 00:40:22,232 --> 00:40:26,478 But it could be out of focus if the image was projected with a lens. 539 00:40:27,319 --> 00:40:29,027 The so-called pointilles, 540 00:40:29,112 --> 00:40:34,984 these little circles of paint, look similar to what you get in a bad lens. 541 00:40:35,659 --> 00:40:40,202 You look at the back of her jacket and there's a faint blue line. 542 00:40:40,288 --> 00:40:46,491 And that looks a lot like chromatic aberration which is what happens in a crude lens. 543 00:40:47,378 --> 00:40:51,161 The edges of objects can develop this rainbow fringe around them. 544 00:40:51,965 --> 00:40:56,092 This falloff of light from the window to the opposite corner 545 00:40:56,177 --> 00:40:59,960 is something that an artist really cannot see the way a camera sees it. 546 00:41:00,055 --> 00:41:01,597 It's impossible to see it. 547 00:41:01,681 --> 00:41:05,263 But Vermeer painted it the way a camera sees it. 548 00:41:05,768 --> 00:41:10,595 Is it possible that some people can see absolute brightness, 549 00:41:10,689 --> 00:41:12,349 and most people, can't? 550 00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:15,013 You know, the way a musician might have perfect pitch? 551 00:41:16,027 --> 00:41:19,477 You know, that's a question for a doctor. 552 00:41:19,738 --> 00:41:23,023 I'm Colin Blakemore. I'm a professor at Oxford. 553 00:41:23,241 --> 00:41:25,814 Or a scientist that specialises in human vision. 554 00:41:25,910 --> 00:41:31,200 And I've spent most of my career studying vision and the functions of the brain. 555 00:41:31,373 --> 00:41:33,863 Is Vermeer maybe some sort of a savant 556 00:41:33,958 --> 00:41:36,034 that's different from the rest of the human race? 557 00:41:36,127 --> 00:41:38,249 What if someone said, 558 00:41:38,337 --> 00:41:43,876 "Maybe there's a savant who is so smart, that he could figure that out." 559 00:41:43,967 --> 00:41:47,051 Well, he's not smart. I mean, he'd have to have a very strange retina. 560 00:41:47,178 --> 00:41:49,217 Our retinas are made the way they're made. 561 00:41:49,430 --> 00:41:51,837 The retina is an outgrowth of the brain. 562 00:41:51,932 --> 00:41:55,929 It's a very complicated structure in terms of its nervous organisation. 563 00:41:56,019 --> 00:41:58,426 The signals go through a complicated network, 564 00:41:58,521 --> 00:42:01,806 several layers of different types of nerve cells, 565 00:42:01,898 --> 00:42:05,646 before they finally get back to the last cells in the chain 566 00:42:05,735 --> 00:42:08,308 whose fibres make up the optic nerve. 567 00:42:08,612 --> 00:42:14,033 The optic nerve has limited bandwidth, so the signals have to be compressed. 568 00:42:14,117 --> 00:42:16,405 One thing we lose in that compression 569 00:42:16,494 --> 00:42:21,202 is the ability to record absolute brightness the way a light metre can. 570 00:42:23,125 --> 00:42:27,667 When we see two values side by side, it's easy to compare them. 571 00:42:28,212 --> 00:42:31,663 But when we split them, that ability goes away. 572 00:42:33,425 --> 00:42:37,636 There just isn't any mechanism in the human nervous system 573 00:42:38,221 --> 00:42:41,506 to turn the eye into a light metre. 574 00:42:41,807 --> 00:42:44,344 And this is a very clever trick for reducing information, 575 00:42:44,434 --> 00:42:48,348 but it's a disaster if you really want to know about the appearance of the scene 576 00:42:48,437 --> 00:42:50,928 because you just can't do it with your brain. 577 00:42:51,732 --> 00:42:55,396 Look at the light on the back wall of The Music Lesson. 578 00:42:55,485 --> 00:43:00,858 Every subtlety of brightness is recorded with absolute photographic precision. 579 00:43:01,949 --> 00:43:05,115 The unaided human eye is not equipped to do that. 580 00:43:05,493 --> 00:43:09,028 But if Vermeer used something like Tim's device, 581 00:43:09,121 --> 00:43:11,328 the painting becomes possible. 582 00:43:12,291 --> 00:43:14,960 The Queen of England owns Vermeer's Music Lesson 583 00:43:15,043 --> 00:43:17,166 and she has it there in Buckingham Palace. 584 00:43:17,253 --> 00:43:21,961 We thought since we were in England, we'd stop by the palace and check it out. 585 00:43:22,383 --> 00:43:26,629 But the Queen said no. So we shot a whole tirade against the Queen. 586 00:43:35,602 --> 00:43:36,633 But then... 587 00:43:36,728 --> 00:43:39,432 Well, I just came out of that building. 588 00:43:40,231 --> 00:43:42,307 That's where the painting is, Buckingham Palace. 589 00:43:42,399 --> 00:43:46,977 The day before Tim returned home, the Queen changed her Royal mind. 590 00:43:47,529 --> 00:43:51,395 She granted Tim a private audience with The Music Lesson. 591 00:43:51,824 --> 00:43:54,445 He had 30 minutes to study the painting. 592 00:43:54,535 --> 00:43:58,579 The deal was, he could only record the experience in his head, 593 00:43:58,663 --> 00:44:00,572 no photography allowed. 594 00:44:00,665 --> 00:44:02,823 And it was a great 30 minutes. 595 00:44:04,460 --> 00:44:06,416 The painting is amazing. 596 00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:10,004 It's very different than I thought it would be. 597 00:44:10,339 --> 00:44:13,506 The reproductions don't do it any justice at all. 598 00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:16,088 The colours are more muted. 599 00:44:16,178 --> 00:44:20,175 It's slightly darker, it's got a kind of an overall bluish cast. 600 00:44:23,309 --> 00:44:27,092 But the astounding thing is the amount of detail. 601 00:44:27,312 --> 00:44:29,684 I put on my magnifying binoculars 602 00:44:30,815 --> 00:44:35,108 and looked at the virginals, and every stroke 603 00:44:35,569 --> 00:44:38,107 of that decoration is there. 604 00:44:39,197 --> 00:44:42,114 The Persian carpet, you can see the individual knots. 605 00:44:44,243 --> 00:44:50,280 The amount of devotion, or dedication, or obsession 606 00:44:50,999 --> 00:44:53,205 to get that amount of detail 607 00:44:53,292 --> 00:44:56,542 that just makes a general impression on the viewer, 608 00:44:57,879 --> 00:45:02,587 but must have taken months of hard work. 609 00:45:06,595 --> 00:45:09,216 I don't know if I can even come close. 610 00:45:11,432 --> 00:45:15,382 When Tim got back to San Antonio, he was in trouble. 611 00:45:19,064 --> 00:45:21,056 When he looked directly at the virginals, 612 00:45:21,149 --> 00:45:26,273 he could see the intricate pattern of interlocking seahorses that Vermeer painted. 613 00:45:28,405 --> 00:45:31,109 When he looked at the projection in his camera obscura, 614 00:45:31,199 --> 00:45:35,362 all those delicate little lines were too fuzzy and dim to paint. 615 00:45:36,036 --> 00:45:37,614 It was a deal-killer. 616 00:45:37,704 --> 00:45:40,277 I had visions of a failed experiment. 617 00:45:40,915 --> 00:45:43,240 Tim knew there was something he was missing. 618 00:45:44,252 --> 00:45:49,458 He experimented with increasingly complex arrangements of lenses and mirrors. 619 00:45:49,798 --> 00:45:51,458 But nothing worked. 620 00:45:51,674 --> 00:45:53,963 Then Tim had an inspiration. 621 00:45:54,552 --> 00:45:58,798 He held a mirror against the wall where the image was being projected. 622 00:45:59,806 --> 00:46:03,850 Now he could see a small circle of the room sharp and clear 623 00:46:03,935 --> 00:46:06,260 and hundreds of times brighter. 624 00:46:06,896 --> 00:46:11,936 By tilting the mirror around, he could see any part of the room he needed to paint. 625 00:46:12,942 --> 00:46:17,568 Then he realised if he just replaced the flat mirror with a concave mirror, 626 00:46:17,655 --> 00:46:19,647 like a shaving mirror, 627 00:46:19,740 --> 00:46:23,606 he could make the bright circle much larger. 628 00:46:24,619 --> 00:46:27,572 So I realised that if I could have an image that bright, 629 00:46:27,663 --> 00:46:29,371 I didn't have to have this darkroom, 630 00:46:29,456 --> 00:46:34,082 I could paint in daylight, which is a huge, huge breakthrough. 631 00:46:34,919 --> 00:46:37,125 Tim started in the dark room. 632 00:46:37,254 --> 00:46:38,997 But the room is gone. 633 00:46:39,089 --> 00:46:41,496 The back wall is a concave mirror. 634 00:46:41,675 --> 00:46:45,672 All that's left of the traditional camera obscura is the lens. 635 00:46:50,599 --> 00:46:56,553 Tim had invented a new optical instrument or, perhaps, rediscovered a lost one. 636 00:46:57,188 --> 00:47:01,600 In it, he could see well enough to attempt Vermeer's level of detail. 637 00:47:02,817 --> 00:47:05,688 He had his room. He had his machine. 638 00:47:05,778 --> 00:47:08,020 He was now ready to paint. 639 00:48:00,407 --> 00:48:01,652 Oh, boy. 640 00:48:38,022 --> 00:48:40,643 Boy, you know, I'm not trying to make this look like a Vermeer, 641 00:48:40,733 --> 00:48:42,393 but it really looks like a Vermeer. 642 00:49:08,423 --> 00:49:13,131 I was cleaning up, and getting ready to put my palette away, 643 00:49:13,218 --> 00:49:16,753 call it a day's work, and I looked up at the monitor. 644 00:49:19,015 --> 00:49:24,353 I thought, "Man, that camera got pointed in the wrong direction, it's pointed at the room." 645 00:49:24,436 --> 00:49:25,895 "How did that happen?" 646 00:49:25,979 --> 00:49:29,928 And that's the thought that went through my head for just a couple milliseconds 647 00:49:30,024 --> 00:49:33,309 before I realised, "No, I'm looking at the painting." 648 00:49:34,278 --> 00:49:36,353 And it was just kind of like a... 649 00:50:21,484 --> 00:50:25,315 You know, this project is a lot like watching paint dry. 650 00:51:17,823 --> 00:51:20,859 I can paint the costumes by putting them on mannequins. 651 00:51:20,951 --> 00:51:24,200 But to paint faces and hands, I need to use people. 652 00:51:26,872 --> 00:51:29,541 I do everything I can to help them hold still. 653 00:51:30,792 --> 00:51:32,416 It sort of works. 654 00:51:36,213 --> 00:51:38,834 My daughter Claire is home for a month from college. 655 00:51:39,174 --> 00:51:41,250 And it's time to paint the girl, 656 00:51:41,468 --> 00:51:45,299 so I put two and two together, and used Claire. 657 00:51:45,388 --> 00:51:48,637 Her two sisters, are also in town, Luren and Natalie. 658 00:51:48,724 --> 00:51:52,673 So they worked on fitting the costume and doing her hair 659 00:51:52,769 --> 00:51:55,722 so that it looks like the girl in the picture. 660 00:51:55,813 --> 00:52:00,309 When they got all that on, she was a dead ringer for the little Dutch girl. 661 00:52:00,567 --> 00:52:04,232 With that completed, we put her in the head clamp, 662 00:52:05,738 --> 00:52:07,814 and positioned her just right. 663 00:52:45,688 --> 00:52:49,270 Few students have ever been happier to go back to school. 664 00:53:01,243 --> 00:53:02,951 I may repaint that. 665 00:53:08,249 --> 00:53:11,415 Excuse me a second. The wind's trying to blow my shade down. 666 00:53:11,502 --> 00:53:14,502 I thought you were having a ghost visitation. 667 00:53:27,890 --> 00:53:29,088 Fucker! 668 00:53:34,104 --> 00:53:35,598 Piece of shit. 669 00:53:37,982 --> 00:53:39,725 We're gonna have to go to plan B here. 670 00:53:39,817 --> 00:53:44,644 The frame that has my window, and my shades and stuff, it came loose 671 00:53:44,738 --> 00:53:47,857 and it fell over and I think everything's okay. 672 00:53:51,285 --> 00:53:52,316 All right. 673 00:53:52,411 --> 00:53:56,242 I tend to build things until they're just barely good enough. 674 00:53:56,790 --> 00:53:59,825 And sometimes that envelope gets exceeded. 675 00:54:00,710 --> 00:54:05,335 So if anything falls askew, your painting's in no danger, is that correct? 676 00:54:05,964 --> 00:54:07,956 No, I wouldn't say that. 677 00:54:08,341 --> 00:54:10,547 - Okay. - But, you know, I can always start over. 678 00:54:59,342 --> 00:55:01,548 Another interesting thing happened. 679 00:55:01,636 --> 00:55:03,628 What I noticed while I was looking at this, 680 00:55:03,721 --> 00:55:07,634 I can see the straight lines of the seahorse there, 681 00:55:07,724 --> 00:55:12,848 and I can see the straight lines that I've ruled already on the canvas, 682 00:55:12,937 --> 00:55:16,388 the framework of the virginals. 683 00:55:16,898 --> 00:55:20,730 All those are perfectly straight lines because I laid 'em out with a straight edge 684 00:55:20,818 --> 00:55:22,478 before I painted them. 685 00:55:22,570 --> 00:55:28,323 Well, when I am trying to align this very close now, within a tiny fraction, 686 00:55:28,408 --> 00:55:33,568 I can see that this straight line isn't quite straight 687 00:55:34,371 --> 00:55:35,534 in the reflection. 688 00:55:35,622 --> 00:55:37,828 It's ever so slightly curved. 689 00:55:38,959 --> 00:55:43,169 Probably not enough to throw me off now that I'm aware of it, 690 00:55:43,254 --> 00:55:47,251 but if I had just literally painted that seahorse pattern, 691 00:55:47,924 --> 00:55:50,629 it would have ended up curved like this. 692 00:55:52,595 --> 00:55:58,430 And, so, I don't know why, but I went over and I picked up the Vermeer print. 693 00:56:00,727 --> 00:56:05,969 And I go, "Well, obviously Vermeer had no trouble" 694 00:56:07,149 --> 00:56:09,474 "painting those lines straight." 695 00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:15,273 And then, I held the painting sideways like this 696 00:56:15,364 --> 00:56:18,199 and I'm looking down these straight lines. 697 00:56:23,121 --> 00:56:25,576 And there's something really crazy about this. 698 00:56:25,748 --> 00:56:29,827 The top and the bottom of the virginals are absolutely straight. 699 00:56:29,918 --> 00:56:33,002 Because when I look at it down here at an angle, 700 00:56:33,921 --> 00:56:36,459 I can see that it's a straight line. 701 00:56:37,299 --> 00:56:39,505 The seahorse motif is curved. 702 00:56:42,011 --> 00:56:43,671 It goes like this. 703 00:56:44,639 --> 00:56:48,089 You can't really tell until you look at it 704 00:56:49,434 --> 00:56:51,640 right down those lines, but... 705 00:56:55,439 --> 00:56:56,684 There is a curvature in there. 706 00:56:56,774 --> 00:56:59,940 And there's really no logical explanation for that 707 00:57:01,278 --> 00:57:04,029 unless he was using something like this. 708 00:57:06,449 --> 00:57:10,944 Tim calls that bend in the seahorse pattern the "seahorse smile." 709 00:57:11,369 --> 00:57:14,204 It's a flaw in Vermeer's painting. 710 00:57:14,289 --> 00:57:20,160 A mistake that nobody noticed for 350 years, and then Tim almost made the same mistake. 711 00:57:20,252 --> 00:57:26,170 Tim is not looking for something that will duplicate Vermeer's mistake. 712 00:57:26,966 --> 00:57:29,883 You know, he doesn't know Vermeer's mistake is there. 713 00:57:29,968 --> 00:57:33,135 That's either a remarkable coincidence 714 00:57:33,221 --> 00:57:38,013 or Vermeer was using Tim's machine, or something very much like Tim's machine 715 00:57:38,100 --> 00:57:39,215 to do his painting. 716 00:57:39,310 --> 00:57:42,808 As Hockney said, paintings are documents, 717 00:57:42,896 --> 00:57:44,972 and here's a little bit of evidence. 718 00:58:39,527 --> 00:58:42,397 Today I painted the seahorse motif. 719 00:58:42,488 --> 00:58:47,113 It was a lot of work. I couldn't really sit here for more than 15, 20 minutes at a time. 720 00:58:47,575 --> 00:58:50,113 Your back just gets extremely tense. 721 00:58:50,369 --> 00:58:56,869 I tried to sit in the most relaxed position I could find, which is like this. 722 00:58:58,376 --> 00:59:03,452 It's just really nerve-wracking, meticulous, demanding work. 723 00:59:03,547 --> 00:59:07,129 I'm not looking forward to doing the rest of the instrument, 724 00:59:07,217 --> 00:59:09,090 but at least I know it's doable. 725 01:00:10,478 --> 01:00:14,427 What I painted today is maybe, I expect 726 01:00:14,523 --> 01:00:19,480 will turn out to be the hardest part of the painting, physically, to do. 727 01:02:02,780 --> 01:02:03,859 Man. 728 01:02:21,171 --> 01:02:25,547 Well, yeah this is going to be short because it's about 40 degrees in here. 729 01:02:25,633 --> 01:02:30,709 So Karl and I came in here this morning, and looked at each other, like, 730 01:02:32,555 --> 01:02:35,556 "No." You know, it's really cold in here. 731 01:02:35,975 --> 01:02:41,313 So I go, "Wait, I've got this heater in the garage that I never assembled." 732 01:02:41,396 --> 01:02:45,892 "I got it for Christmas a few years ago, it's one of those patio heaters." 733 01:02:48,027 --> 01:02:51,727 So, Karl said, "Hey, I'll put it together, let's go get it." 734 01:02:52,405 --> 01:02:55,489 So we went and got it, and put it together, it's over there. 735 01:02:55,575 --> 01:02:59,738 And fired it up and it worked great. It's nice and toasty, you know? 736 01:03:00,287 --> 01:03:02,860 Karl was sittin' over there with his computer, 737 01:03:02,956 --> 01:03:09,124 and I said, "Hey, look up on there to see if it's safe to use these indoors." 738 01:03:12,464 --> 01:03:14,124 And Karl looks up and says, 739 01:03:14,215 --> 01:03:18,212 "Yeah, you know it says here it's absolutely not safe to use indoors." 740 01:03:19,261 --> 01:03:23,093 And I said, "Okay. Well, let's just run it" 741 01:03:24,140 --> 01:03:27,094 "and we'll be careful, okay?" 742 01:03:27,185 --> 01:03:33,352 "So if we notice any symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, you know," 743 01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:35,562 "we'll shut it off." 744 01:03:35,650 --> 01:03:40,940 So I start painting, and I actually painted an elephant on The Music Lesson. 745 01:03:41,780 --> 01:03:45,860 I don't know why I put it there, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. 746 01:03:45,950 --> 01:03:49,947 Karl actually, he put his head down, 747 01:03:51,538 --> 01:03:53,614 and he said, "I need a nap." 748 01:03:53,707 --> 01:03:56,280 I said, "What did you say?" He said, "I need a nap." 749 01:03:56,376 --> 01:04:00,539 I said, "Okay, let's leave right now." 750 01:04:01,964 --> 01:04:04,122 "Let's shut this thing off and go get lunch." 751 01:04:04,216 --> 01:04:06,753 And on the way to lunch, driving to lunch, 752 01:04:06,843 --> 01:04:09,879 everything sort of cleared up again, you know, we were in a fog. 753 01:04:09,970 --> 01:04:11,346 So anyway, that was a bad idea. 754 01:04:57,802 --> 01:04:59,711 It was kind of a weird day. 755 01:05:01,347 --> 01:05:04,550 I came in and started painting this lower cushion, 756 01:05:04,641 --> 01:05:08,425 and sort of a wave of revulsion swept over me. 757 01:05:10,771 --> 01:05:15,516 I just wanted to do anything in the world but sit here and paint for some reason. 758 01:05:17,193 --> 01:05:19,601 I don't know, just one of those things. 759 01:05:20,446 --> 01:05:24,230 But I am pretty much ready for this painting to be finished. 760 01:05:26,368 --> 01:05:28,277 If we weren't making a film, would I quit? 761 01:05:28,370 --> 01:05:32,497 Yeah, I definitely would. Yeah. I'd find something else to do right now. 762 01:05:36,793 --> 01:05:40,921 Well, yesterday when I was painting this chair, I was almost 763 01:05:44,216 --> 01:05:45,461 repulsed by it. 764 01:05:45,551 --> 01:05:49,761 I think maybe subconsciously I knew that it was wrong. 765 01:05:52,765 --> 01:05:57,510 And it just didn't look like it belonged in the painting to me, 766 01:05:57,602 --> 01:06:00,603 and I couldn't put my finger on the reason why. 767 01:06:01,397 --> 01:06:04,979 And as I was trying to get to sleep last night, 768 01:06:05,067 --> 01:06:08,685 I was just sort of laying there and I was visualizing that chair 769 01:06:08,778 --> 01:06:11,186 and I could see it in my mind. 770 01:06:11,281 --> 01:06:14,447 And I go, "You know, that's just the wrong blue." 771 01:06:15,909 --> 01:06:18,151 "I should darken the legs." 772 01:06:19,579 --> 01:06:22,496 The top of the chair can't possibly be tilted to the left. 773 01:06:22,582 --> 01:06:26,116 It's like I'm seeing it and that can't possibly be right. 774 01:06:26,210 --> 01:06:29,495 I realised that I had bumped the lens out of position 775 01:06:29,588 --> 01:06:32,671 and that's why the chair's perspective was wrong. 776 01:06:33,299 --> 01:06:35,172 It was totally a subconscious thing. 777 01:06:35,259 --> 01:06:41,131 Maybe I do have an inner artist that knew that was wrong. 778 01:07:29,429 --> 01:07:34,256 I thought that the rug would be a little more free-form painting. 779 01:07:34,350 --> 01:07:39,011 But this rug is close enough to the optical equipment here 780 01:07:39,104 --> 01:07:42,686 that I can clearly see all those little stitches. 781 01:07:42,774 --> 01:07:47,898 And since I can see that, and since my rule is "paint what you see in the mirror," 782 01:07:47,987 --> 01:07:50,275 if I want to get that kind of detail, 783 01:07:50,364 --> 01:07:55,488 I'm gonna have to sort of make like the harpsichord here 784 01:07:56,327 --> 01:07:58,284 and just go for the detail. 785 01:08:28,062 --> 01:08:30,101 So, another day, more dots. 786 01:08:30,189 --> 01:08:31,351 Ditto yesterday. 787 01:08:31,857 --> 01:08:33,232 Just painting more dots. 788 01:09:29,488 --> 01:09:33,153 You know, it gets old painting this carpet. 789 01:10:03,976 --> 01:10:05,351 Oh, my God. 790 01:10:12,733 --> 01:10:13,978 We're on. 791 01:10:15,902 --> 01:10:19,271 Okay, so I've been frantically running around here, 792 01:10:21,115 --> 01:10:22,775 setting up lights. 793 01:10:27,078 --> 01:10:28,537 And it shows. 794 01:10:30,581 --> 01:10:33,747 Today is the denouement, of sorts. 795 01:10:34,543 --> 01:10:35,788 The varnish job. 796 01:10:36,044 --> 01:10:40,670 For the last several months I've been promising myself 797 01:10:40,756 --> 01:10:43,461 that all would be better when the varnish went on. 798 01:10:43,551 --> 01:10:49,006 Because as the paint dries, it gets light, it gets chalky, it desaturates. 799 01:10:49,097 --> 01:10:51,504 I've been very anxious to do this. 800 01:10:53,684 --> 01:10:58,974 I went along slowly with a small brush and finally I just grabbed a giant brush, 801 01:10:59,647 --> 01:11:03,230 sloshed it in the varnish and just started going to town. 802 01:11:03,484 --> 01:11:06,650 And everywhere I touched was magic. 803 01:11:09,322 --> 01:11:11,149 It's pretty astounding. 804 01:11:20,456 --> 01:11:22,413 Well, you know, today... 805 01:11:28,380 --> 01:11:31,001 Today's the day I've been waiting for. 806 01:11:42,308 --> 01:11:43,636 I'm sorry. 807 01:11:52,483 --> 01:11:54,523 I can't believe it's finished. 808 01:11:58,697 --> 01:12:02,694 We took Tim's painting back to England to show Hockney and Steadman. 809 01:12:05,661 --> 01:12:07,238 Well, that's it. 810 01:12:14,585 --> 01:12:20,836 So, you know, it's my first ambitious attempt at oil painting, 811 01:12:22,383 --> 01:12:25,586 and that's kind of part of the experiment, that I'm not a painter, 812 01:12:25,678 --> 01:12:28,251 but I was trying to show the power of the concept. 813 01:12:28,347 --> 01:12:29,426 Yeah. 814 01:12:30,891 --> 01:12:33,049 This is terrific, I must say. 815 01:12:33,268 --> 01:12:39,103 We noticed this when we were doing our lens experiments. 816 01:12:39,439 --> 01:12:44,231 We noticed that especially on these kind of cloths, 817 01:12:44,735 --> 01:12:48,400 on the projection you saw every weave 818 01:12:48,489 --> 01:12:52,106 that you couldn't in the real one, and you get that in Vermeer. 819 01:12:52,200 --> 01:12:54,738 Now that's very, very effective. Anybody looking at this... 820 01:12:54,827 --> 01:12:57,579 - I think this is better than Vermeer. - Better than Vermeer? 821 01:12:57,663 --> 01:13:01,114 You do feel the weave of the carpet. 822 01:13:01,208 --> 01:13:02,618 Yeah, you really do. 823 01:13:02,709 --> 01:13:04,417 It looks actually woolly, doesn't it? 824 01:13:04,502 --> 01:13:06,044 Amazing, actually. 825 01:13:07,671 --> 01:13:10,376 It had to be something similar, it had to be. 826 01:13:10,716 --> 01:13:13,633 I mean, there's no doubt that you've proved one thing, Tim, 827 01:13:13,718 --> 01:13:18,878 that you can paint a painting of this degree of detail and precision in... 828 01:13:18,973 --> 01:13:22,804 Well, it's not exactly a camera obscura, but it's an optical machine. 829 01:13:22,892 --> 01:13:26,557 And that's really what I set out to prove, is that it could have been done that way. 830 01:13:26,646 --> 01:13:28,104 Sure. I mean there's no doubt about that. 831 01:13:28,189 --> 01:13:30,311 There's no way that it proves that Vermeer did. 832 01:13:30,399 --> 01:13:34,396 That's the second question obviously, yes. Did Vermeer work that way? 833 01:13:34,486 --> 01:13:38,814 Yeah, but it makes you rather convinced that's what he did. 834 01:13:38,906 --> 01:13:42,072 I'm getting a little more convinced all the time. 835 01:13:42,242 --> 01:13:44,863 I would say I'm about 90% there. 836 01:13:45,411 --> 01:13:50,653 But, you know, if there was some historical record... 837 01:13:50,749 --> 01:13:54,793 I mean, the idea that a painting isn't a historical record 838 01:13:54,878 --> 01:14:00,215 is from literary people who seem to just not look at pictures and just read texts. 839 01:14:00,424 --> 01:14:02,250 This is a document in itself. 840 01:14:02,342 --> 01:14:05,212 I know people are going on about documents. 841 01:14:05,303 --> 01:14:08,506 Paintings and drawings are documents, they tell you a great deal. 842 01:14:08,597 --> 01:14:11,930 You've made a document that's proving something, it is. 843 01:14:12,017 --> 01:14:14,175 It's fascinating. 844 01:14:14,686 --> 01:14:17,437 I mean, you set out to do some research. 845 01:14:17,647 --> 01:14:22,806 I think you've succeeded and, well, you've shown it's possible to do it. 846 01:14:23,985 --> 01:14:27,484 - As I say, if you've recorded it very well... - Yeah, yeah. 847 01:14:27,572 --> 01:14:29,979 I think it might disturb quite a lot of people. 848 01:14:30,074 --> 01:14:32,944 - I certainly hope so. - Which is fine, that's fine. Why not? 849 01:14:51,383 --> 01:14:53,708 My friend Tim painted a Vermeer. 850 01:14:54,386 --> 01:14:57,552 In a warehouse, in San Antonio. 851 01:14:57,639 --> 01:14:59,465 He painted a Vermeer. 852 01:15:00,933 --> 01:15:03,850 And is Tim an artist, or is Tim an inventor? 853 01:15:04,061 --> 01:15:07,892 I think the problem is not trying to pick one of those two for Tim to be, 854 01:15:07,981 --> 01:15:11,147 but the problem is that we have that distinction. 855 01:15:12,359 --> 01:15:17,186 What Tim has done is given us an image of Vermeer 856 01:15:17,280 --> 01:15:23,993 as a man who is much more real, and in that way much more amazing. 857 01:15:25,662 --> 01:15:29,991 I mean, unfathomable genius doesn't really mean anything. 858 01:15:30,666 --> 01:15:32,824 Now he's a fathomable genius. 859 01:15:44,011 --> 01:15:48,672 If there's any great merit in this picture as a work of art, it's Vermeer's. 860 01:15:49,515 --> 01:15:54,224 It's Vermeer's composition and it's Vermeer's invention. 861 01:15:54,686 --> 01:15:58,434 It's just been forgotten for 350 years.