Art Chowder November | December 2017, Issue 12 | Page 34

I
nventor and computer graphics entre-
preneur Tim Jenison, inspired by Hock-
ney’s book and with time on his hands
and financial means, attempted to find out
if he, an acknowledged non-artist, could
replicate a Vermeer painting using an
optical device of his own invention: a spe-
cially mounted lens with a pair of mirrors.
Not content to merely copy a reproduction
of Vermeer’s Music Lesson, Jenison want-
ed to prove whether it was possible for an
artistically untrained person to create “a
Vermeer” from an actual interior setting.
So, going far beyond Steadman’s scale
model, he set himself first to replicate the
room in the picture and everything in it:
the furniture, the beautifully decorated
keyboard instrument where the woman
stands, the costumes, the windows, and
especially to get the light in the scene as
close to Vermeer’s as possible. He ground
his own paint using pigments Vermeer
was known to use, to make it all as au-
thentic as he could.
Johannes Vermeer
The Music Lesson
c. 1662–1665
Oil on canvas
28 7/8 x 25 3/8”
The Royal Collection, The Windsor Castle
The finished painting is startlingly im-
pressive for a rank amateur, and the media
ran with it. Both Steadman and Hockney,
who appear in the film, were impressed.
Reviews in major news outlets led with
provocative headlines like:
“What if Johannes Vermeer were a machine?”
- Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post
“Tim’s Vermeer is a debunker’s delight.”
- Boston Globe
“P enn and Teller’s uncanny crowd-pleaser begs the question, is it still a masterpiece if an
amateur could do it?” followed by, “So entertaining that audiences hardly even realize how
incendiary it is, Tim’s Vermeer stirs up a flurry of scandal in the hallowed realm of art history.”
- Variety
“What if you could paint like Johannes Vermeer? What if everyone
could? How would that transform our beliefs about artistic genius?”
- The Daily Beast
34
ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE