Vermeer's Game

On my drive home from work today, I heard a fascinating interview with the director of a new documentary about some strange methods possibly used by 17th century artist Johannes Vermeer to create his masterpieces.  The idea is that he may have built some complex combinations of mirrors and lenses to project images onto (or near to) his canvases to aid in the construction of his famously photo-realistic renderings of life.

The radio interview is here, and additional information about the documentary is here.  The NPR reporter was almost aghast at the insinuation that Vermeer may have "cheated" somehow using these techniques.  The director retorted wonderfully:

"Art is not sports. Art is an activity in which one human heart communicates to the other human heart. If Vermeer used this method, which Tim believes pretty strongly he may have used, that makes Vermeer better, not worse. What this means is that Vermeer was not only someone with wonderful and beautiful ideas, and someone capable of miraculous compositions, but that he was willing to put in the incredibly intense work to translate those ideas to paint on canvas. And it's very possible that Vermeer himself may have invented this device."

One thing I forgot to mention:  the director is the guy on the right...

...and it was rather surreal to hear the voice of the normally silent partner of the two talk about this project.  It is also quite spot-on for these particular stage magicians (who often delight in the deconstruction of their craft) to be interested in these techniques.  Is it too much of a cliche to say it?  I'll say it.  "It's all done with mirrors," after all.  :-)

I can't help but think about possible links between Vermeer's mirrors and lenses and some other famous optical marvels of that time period.  It was probably no coincidence that the 1600s also saw the development of the magic lantern -- an early version of the slide projector -- which was used not only in stage shows, but also in spooky initiation rituals and spiritualist seances.  Earlier this year I talked about the fictional (?) and magical (?) "looking glasses of divers virtues" described in the anonymous Rosicrucian manifestos of the early 1600s.

And, of course, there's the Glass Bead Game itself.  Although the game itself is supposed to be a highly abstract symbolic presentation of complementary and contrasting ideas, Herman Hesse described its origins as a set of colored glass beads strung on an abacus-like set of parallel wires...

"The wires corresponded to the lines of the musical staff, the beads to the time-values of the notes, and so on. In this way he [the creator of the game, Bastian Perrot] could represent with beads musical quotations or invented themes, could alter, transpose, and develop them, change them and set them in counterpoint to one another."

I've always loved the subtle ways that the concepts of reflection, refraction, and the focusing of light (through those colored beads) could be used as metaphors for the infinite alchemy of ideas made possible by something like the Glass Bead Game.  Well now, I've just got to create the darn thing...