[HN Gopher] 108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pe...
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108B Pixel Scan of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring
Author : twalichiewicz
Score : 446 points
Date : 2025-05-01 00:22 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.hirox-europe.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.hirox-europe.com)
| WalterBright wrote:
| Ah, so beautiful!
| bombcar wrote:
| Why does "Details 90x" seem to zoom in more than "Details 140x"?
| pfedak wrote:
| The main image is all at the same 90x level, and those buttons
| just zoom in (more or less) all the way on the points, while
| the "140x" are separate scan patches at higher magnification
| (though the real point is they have 3D/height data, too).
| diego_moita wrote:
| Saw this picture at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. There
| are a couple funny things about it:
|
| * It is surprisingly small
|
| * It is kinda "fuzzy" or "blurry", you can't detect too much
| brushwork.
|
| * It is very expressive
|
| But my favorite Vermeer is not this, it is View of Delft, also in
| the Mauritshuis. The colors, hues and textures on it are just
| amazing.
|
| For Brazilians, a funny curiosity: Mauritshuis means House of
| Maurice. It is really the former residence of Maurice of Nassau
| (Mauricio de Nassau), the governor of the Dutch colonies in
| Brazil. This museum also have some interesting works by Rugendas
| and other painters showing life in colonial Brazil and a very
| cool collection of puppets made with bread paste showing life in
| colonial Indonesia.
|
| The Mauritshuis is a very good reason to visit The Hague. If you
| go there take a walk to the M.C. Escher museum too.
| djsavvy wrote:
| Wow, View of Delft is beautiful!
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Vermeer-...
| bzhang255 wrote:
| I feel obliged to point anyone interested to Proust on
| Vermeer: https://www.essentialvermeer.com/proust/proust.html
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's worth a visit if you're in the Netherlands. Large parts
| of the town are the same as they've been for centuries.
| technothrasher wrote:
| My favorite is The Little Street.
| (https://www.johannesvermeer.org/the-little-street.jsp). I just
| love the quiet calmness of it. I had a copy of it made from one
| of those cheap Asian oil painting places online (the frame I
| put it in cost me more than the painting!), and was surprised
| what a good job the artist did. When I went to Amsterdam a few
| years ago, I made a point to go see the real one. But I
| wondered how well I'd visually remember my copy in order to
| make a direct comparison to the actual painting. I remembered
| well enough to be blown away by the real one. As pleased as I
| am with me copy, it's definitely not the same.
| lubujackson wrote:
| I highly recommend the movie "Tim's Vermeer" about the likelihood
| that Vermeer used something like a lightbox to paint his
| paintings. Specifically, his ability to reproduce light and color
| is unmatched while he only had basic training as a painter and
| never let anyone see him work. A fascinating engineering problem
| to deduce how he might have accomplished this.
| diego_moita wrote:
| It isn't a bad hypothesis.
|
| Many people speculate that the model for the "The Astronomer"
| and "The Geographer" was Leeuwenhoek, the creator of the first
| microscope. He was a close friend of Vermeer.
|
| And the use of devices for helping in drawing was actually
| quite common in those times. Durer and Da Vinci made drawings
| showing these kind of devices.
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| It's a great science documentary though. His obsession, how
| he works towards it and the emotional effect the whole
| project has on him. Worth watching regardless of your opinion
| on the hypothesis.
| dewarrn1 wrote:
| It's an appealing hypothesis, but there's some compelling
| evidence to the contrary [0]. I'm not an expert, but this could
| potentially fall under the heading of pop history or
| pseudohistory.
|
| [0] https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4707
| adastra22 wrote:
| Watch Tim's Vermeer. The camera obscura doesn't work (for
| similar reasons as mentioned in the article). Don't want to
| spoil it, but Tim comes up with a very low tech solution that
| fits all the evidence.
| y-curious wrote:
| Thank you! I watched some clips on YouTube and I'm very
| impressed by Tim's technique's efficacy.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Side-rant: I just watched a clip[0] and I have to say something
| about the misrepresentation of the Hockney-Falco thesis[1] in
| it.
|
| And when I say I _have to_ I really mean that: I 'm Dutch,
| tried studying physics, dropped out, switched to studying art,
| specifically photography (even built my own camera at one
| point), then in the first year of art school was introduced to
| the Hockney-Falco thesis, then went to the International
| Congress of Physics Students one last time to hang out with my
| friends, decided to give a talk on the topic, and ended up
| winning best talk of the conference. So I'm kind of obliged to
| Have Some Opinions on this topic.
|
| The clip mentions the HF thesis as if Hockney introduced the
| notion that the Dutch painters in Vermeer's time used optical
| tools. That's... not what the thesis claimed. Johannes Vermeer
| lived in the 17th century[2]. As the clip (correctly) states,
| telescopes and mirrors were known to the Netherlands by then -
| in fact the earliest known records of a refracting telescope is
| from a failed patent application in the Netherlands in 1608[3].
|
| From what I remember, the hypothesis that Vermeer used optical
| tools wasn't controversial even back in the mid-2000s, a decade
| before this film came out. While there was no _direct_ proof,
| he _did_ live in the right place and period to have been
| introduced to telescopes, and artists trying out new tools is
| obviously a thing that happened throughout history. Being
| secretive about his work was obviously also very suspicious. I
| recall that we also discussed how certain visual qualities of
| the painting suggested the use of optical tools - Vermeer 's
| style was also just so noticeably different and photograph-like
| compared to his peers. To be clear, nobody thought this
| diminished the quality of Vermeer's paintings: he was still
| innovating and mastering his tools, and creating the beautiful
| paintings that he made still took tremendous skill.
|
| However, what the Hockney-Falco thesis claims is that _Early
| Renaissance_ painters like, say, Jan van Eyck[4] already used
| optical tools, centuries before telescopes and optical mirrors
| optics were introduced in Europe. We 're talking 15th century
| onwards. And not only that, that this was secret knowledge
| hidden by the painter's guilds, of which no known record
| survives even though we have records of all the _other_
| painting techniques used. _That 's_ what makes it so
| controversial.
|
| The hypothesis that there was a painter who lived during a time
| of great innovation in optical tools in the place where those
| innovations took place, then secretly used those tools to get a
| leg up on the competition is very plausible.
|
| The suggestion that the entirety of Europe's Renaissance
| painters learned about optical tools from Arab lands but
| managed to keep this knowledge secret for centuries sounds like
| a conspiracy theory.
|
| (also, it's completely ignorant of the realistic qualities of
| some of the old _Roman_ art[5], and those painters definitely
| did not have high quality lenses available to them)
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoqWwuRnj3o
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockney%E2%80%93Falco_thesis
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Vermeer
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_telescope
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_van_Eyck
|
| [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_art
| trylfthsk wrote:
| This does make me wonder what kinds of secrets can and can't
| be kept; on the face of it, that a critical bit of insider
| information would be kept for oral transmission at particular
| times (something like a mystery cult) leads me to think that
| keeping such a secret is at least possible.
|
| At the same time, people love gossip.
|
| Of course, the only secrets we know from the past were by
| definition not exactly well-kept.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| They'd also have to paint without anyone seeing them paint.
| The fact that Vermeer stood out for being so secretive
| about his process says something here. Even a no-lens
| camera obscura would be pretty hard to hide given that it
| would require to be painting in a darkened room next to the
| person being painted.
|
| But your question is an interesting one, for sure. Revealed
| secrets come in different flavors - fully known ones, but
| also "known unknown" types of secrets, like the exact
| "recipes" a painter might have used for their paints being
| a mystery. However, when it comes to "unknown unknowns"
| hiddeo secrets I think it's very hard to keep those when
| dealing with more than a handful of individuals.
| thatgerhard wrote:
| "Generally, you don't take a fine precision machine tool [a
| lathe] and saw it in half... but power tools are made to be
| jury rigged." - Tim
| aestetix wrote:
| I highly recommend _against_ watching the movie. The main
| figure, Tim Jenison, comes off as an arrogant know-it-all,
| reducing art to a technique, and insulting people along the
| way. In the movie, multiple times he said "I have never done
| this before, but how hard could it be?"
|
| I'll note two parts of the movie that support my view. First,
| if his art is so great, then why is it not displayed all over
| the place? He has a few alleged experts giving praise without
| criticism, and in the end, it is on the wall in his bedroom.
| Surely, if the art were that easy to recreate, galleries would
| be demanding his piece?
|
| Second, notice how they never actually show the _real_
| painting. In fact, at one point they make it out to be a
| conspiracy, that the painting is being kept in some back room
| nobody can access. I would loved to have seen the real painting
| side-by-side with Tim 's alleged reproduction. I suspect they
| didn't push to hard for access, because it would have ruined
| their narrative.
| CollinEMac wrote:
| I agree that Tim definitely comes off as a bit of a jerk.
| However...
|
| > First, if his art is so great, then why is it not displayed
| all over the place? He has a few alleged experts giving
| praise without criticism, and in the end, it is on the wall
| in his bedroom. Surely, if the art were that easy to
| recreate, galleries would be demanding his piece?
|
| I could be wrong but I don't think there's much demand for
| _replicas_ of classic paintings even if they are incredibly
| high quality. A lot of the value of a Vermeer painting is
| that it was _actually painted by Vermeer in the 17th century_
| -- not necessarily the quality of the piece itself.
|
| Regarding your second point, who knows?
| aestetix wrote:
| I thought the point of the movie was to claim that Vermeer
| was nothing special, and Tim's effort to recreate the
| painting was supposed to prove that. I think the galleries
| would disagree with that point, otherwise they would not
| care whether Vermeer actually painted them.
|
| And yes, both of my points are speculation, fueled by an
| immense dislike for the movie.
| colonelspace wrote:
| The point of the documentary was to show that Vermeer
| _may have used optics_.
|
| That's it.
| daseiner1 wrote:
| If the claims are true then Vermeer is absolutely
| exceptional, just in a different manner than is usually
| considered.
|
| All painters must grapple with the technical nature of
| paint itself and its manipulation. Choice of type of
| paint, canvas, application, &c. is paramount. Rothko's
| work, for instance, is only effective because he found a
| novel way to apply paint that lends his paintings a
| remarkable, nigh eerie depth of color. Spending roughly
| half an hour just staring at the Seagram murals in the
| "Rothko Room" at the Tate Modern is one of my all-time
| favorite experiences.
| resize2996 wrote:
| There have been posts about reproducing art and I always
| thinking maybe I could make a mini-Rothko room in spare
| room.
| daseiner1 wrote:
| that would be cool! sincerely. post it here if you do.
|
| i feel like the above comment might come across as
| sarcastic but i genuinely find it super cool when a
| layman can master a new discipline with force of will and
| publicly available writings. much like vermeer's much
| speculated-upon clever use of technology ;)
| otherayden wrote:
| Anyone know what they're using to render this? Something like map
| tiles?
| jer0me wrote:
| Yes. This site seems to be using https://krpano.com, but
| https://openseadragon.github.io/ is an open-source alternative.
| The New York Times has used the latter for features like this
| one:
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/26/world/europe/...
| gblargg wrote:
| Props to them for not locking out older browsers as many
| sites are doing these days.
| cgriswald wrote:
| When viewing this I was captivated by the girl's lips. In the
| full view, the bottom lip looks not just full and moist, but
| slightly wet. Zooming in, it's a bit of a muddy mess with only a
| splash of white giving definition to the (anatomical) left of the
| girl's mouth.
|
| In my current incarnation I'm a fledgling novelist and one of the
| things I've learned is to trust the audience to 'fill in the
| gaps'. Although this is probably obvious already to many, the
| parallel between that and the way that we sort of do that when we
| look at paintings suddenly hit me.
| userbinator wrote:
| _Zooming in, it 's a bit of a muddy mess_
|
| The analog equivalent of pixelation.
| cgriswald wrote:
| It's like touching it with your eye, without the pain. I love
| the future.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| It's like the museum scene from _Ferris Bueller 's Day Off_
| when Cameron is staring super intently at the painting
| jychang wrote:
| More like the analog version of doing a FTT and looking at
| only the high frequency parts vs the low frequency parts.
| drob518 wrote:
| Yep, I noticed the same thing and came to a similar
| realization.
| cmehdy wrote:
| We think that everything is made of things but we forget that
| everything is mostly made of nothing, and it's the gaps between
| things that make it all be.
|
| See also: atomic size vs distance between atoms in any
| structure, on perceptual levels the visual saccadic movement
| and how much the brain fills in the gaps.
|
| Nothing is quite something after all.
| markovs_gun wrote:
| I hate this phrase because how do you even define "made of
| nothing" or "gaps between" when talking about objects as
| fuzzy as electrons, and how would you define where something
| "is" or "isn't " other than interactions? If an electron
| cloud is interacting with another electron cloud why do we
| say that space is empty? Because the measured radius of an
| electron is so much smaller than we observe?
| monadINtop wrote:
| Like you say, it's just a more intuitive classical analogy
| for people who don't want to waste good years of their life
| (like me) to understand the mathematical detail of
| theoretical physics.
|
| The electron doesn't actually have a measured radius (in
| our current theories). QFT describes it as point-like
| excitation of an underlying quantum field. The only
| connection between our quantum theories (that is really
| just slightly hand wavy math) and reality is that our
| theories can predict the statistics of observing a particle
| or interaction in a given state. So maybe a slightly more
| coherent explanation is that for a given region between
| atoms in solid matter, the probability of observing an
| electron (or any particle) is extremely small. Its like a
| quantum mechanical cat who's territory extends across
| mountains and forests, you're probably not gonna stumble
| across it on any given day, unlike a (quantum) house cat
| that lives in someones apartment. More generally there are
| no big "lumps" in the wave-functions, it's very thinly
| spread like too little butter on toast.
| roughly wrote:
| If you get a chance to see some of the impressionists in
| person, they're kind of mind blowing for exactly the same
| reason - you're looking at a scene of a ship in a storm and
| seeing all kinds of nuance, and then you get closer and realize
| it's all your brain filling in the blanks.
|
| From a literary angle - two books I've read that are absolute
| master classes in this are Italio Calvino's "Invisible Cities"
| and "This Is How You Lose the Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and
| Max Gladstone - both do an incredible job of putting you in a
| series of vivid, fantastical places within a paragraph or two
| of exposition.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| I read a lot of sci-fi and because it's come up in
| recommendations I've tried two or three times to read that
| book, "This Is How You Lose the Time War".
|
| The popularity of that book along with stuff like N.K.
| Jemisin winning "Best SciFi book" of the year 3 years in a
| row prove more than ever that the vast majority of people
| simply don't have taste in the sense they can not decide if
| they actually like something or not they can only like what
| other people like.
|
| That book was objectively bad but it keeps showing up on the
| top of best sci-fi book lists for some reason and so a lot of
| people keep (mistakingly) thinking they liked it.
| fish_phrenology wrote:
| It took a bit but by the end it had grown on me. I agree
| it's technically not great but maybe I'm just used to that
| from reading sci-fi, most of which feels technically bad.
| That said my reaction to the first quarter was mostly
| "uhh?". Big disagree on N.K. Jemisin though, I enjoyed
| reading those. Books 2 and 3 of the three body problem
| series feel like what you're describing to me. Never got
| why those were popular, the first one had the interesting
| cultural revolution flashback element but the sequels did
| almost nothing for me.
|
| Filling-in-the-gaps-books wise, it's hard to do better than
| Earthsea in my mind. They're quite short books, yet I found
| myself far more engrossed in the world and the goings-on
| than some thousand page Sanderson tomb I snoozed through.
| pests wrote:
| > interesting cultural revolution flashback element
|
| Interestingly this section either appeared in the
| beginning or somewhere in the middle depending on the
| translation/version (I forget how the distinction was
| made) due to it being so different from the rest of the
| book.
|
| It was in the beginning when I read it years ago and I
| think it took a bit for its context to make sense but I
| also read many lost interest during it.
|
| I enjoyed all the books. (spoilers incoming) I actually
| enjoyed the love story elements, how a star given to
| someone would play such an important role later. How he
| survived in the end and communicated the three fairy
| tales, and enjoyed each in turn. I've never seen a story
| span such a vast amount of time nor remember one that
| took us literally to the end.
| eru wrote:
| I already felt pretty annoyed with the first Three Body
| Problem book.
|
| But a big part of the problem is that after looking into
| space colonisation etc a bit, the aliens in most alien
| invasion stories feel utterly stupid to me.
|
| I can still live with 'War of the worlds': their aliens
| only come from Mars not from the stars, and I can suspend
| my disbelief over eg its theory of how the planets
| formed: it's just a fantasy world where outer planets
| formed earlier and are older.
|
| But the Three Body Problem tries to be current-ish with
| modern technology. And its aliens have enough technology
| to just build orbitals or terraform Mars or so. Or just
| kill off all the humans from space with an orbital
| bombardment or a killer virus. Instead of whatever clunky
| and ineffective methods they use in the book.
|
| I did like the start though, when things were still kept
| behind the curtain. Also the Cultural Revolution
| flashbacks, too.
|
| War of the Worlds never lifts that curtain for sure.
| Everything stays fairly mysterious, and the narrative
| only gives us some limited speculation from the narrator
| who clearly has also only a limited view on things.
| gilleain wrote:
| Are you not confusing 'liking' a work with 'thinking it
| good'. I'm not sure what criteria go into your evaluation,
| but perhaps those criteria are different from the ones
| other people are using?
| roughly wrote:
| > objectively bad
|
| Well that settles that, then.
| michaelhoney wrote:
| ... or maybe it's not objectively bad, and you're bouncing
| off it for some reason?
|
| Per the parent comment, it does a lot with very little. And
| it's heady and literary and beautiful. Not everyone is into
| that. But a lot of people are.
| dripdry45 wrote:
| Guh, NK Jemisin :Q I tried getting through a few chapters
| of three of her books and haven't felt so... Pushed? Talked
| at? Bored? Hadn't grimaced internally and externally as
| much with an author in a while.
|
| They feel juvenile, trying SO hard. Using a different
| person perspective in one of them to hamfisted effect, as
| opposed to someone like Tamsyn Muir who integrates that
| device for good reason and to brilliant effect.
|
| I gave NK a solid try and was appalled at how in the world
| anyone could think these are engaging.
| pbronez wrote:
| Time War is NOT hard Sci-Fi. It's a wartime romance that
| uses divergent technical evolution to create cultural
| distance and time travel to engineer social collisions.
|
| The combination is fantastically human.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| Try to learn to be less self-centered. Something isn't
| objectively bad because you don't like it. People aren't
| tricked into liking something just because you don't like
| it. People's tastes vary and different people like
| different writing styles. Try something like "I think the
| books are very poorly written and I just cannot understand
| how they continue to be so popular. Seriously, what is the
| appeal?" Not only are you presenting your viewpoint, not as
| some arbiter of truth, but you are inviting discussion and
| an opportunity to learn something you don't currently know
| i.e. what people enjoy about those books that makes them
| popular.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Who's that fella what did that TV show where he paints
| portraits of his famous guests.
| dvt wrote:
| > Italio Calvino's "Invisible Cities"
|
| So wild seeing this referenced here, it's a pretty obscure
| book (of _poetry_ nonetheless), and one my absolute
| favorites. Cheers to having great taste :)
|
| PS: Small nit: it's "Italo," not "Italio."
| te_chris wrote:
| Likewise! I love this book
| photonthug wrote:
| Hey! We read more than code, and Calvino's not so obscure.
| ;) Here, enjoy some stuff from my open tabs:
| https://rustandmoth.com/work/on-the-ducks-who-are-people-
| and... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem
| s/26063/... https://fleursdumal.org/poem/099 https://writin
| g.upenn.edu/epc/authors/bernstein/books/artifi...
| jebarker wrote:
| I remember reading Jonathan Blow saying this book was a big
| influence on his approach to game design.
| TylerE wrote:
| Absolutely. I was at the Virginia Museum of Art where they
| have several Monets and 3 Van Goghs. They also let you get
| quite close to them... less than a foot away in some cases.
| The amount of texture is incredible. (What also struck me in
| person, though I had read about it previously, is how tiny
| almost all Van Goghs are. Barely more than postcard size in
| some cases.
| astr0n0m3r wrote:
| You should probably fact check your statement about the
| size of Van Gogh paintings. Easily disproved.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| They're shown on big walls, so I totally get how they can
| _seem_ small.
| TylerE wrote:
| Several of the paintings at the VMA are less than 10
| inches in their lingerie dimension.
|
| Perhaps postcard sized was slight hyperbole, but not by
| much. All 3 would have been in the bottom 5 of the museum
| size wise, and it's a huge museum.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" They also let you get quite close to them... less than a
| foot away in some cases."_
|
| That happened to me some years ago in the Rijksmuseum in
| Amsterdam, two remarkable pictures particularly come to
| mind Vermeer's _The Milkmaid_ and a Rembrandt self
| portrait.
|
| _The Milkmaid_ is comparatively small painting (~18x16 "
| according to Wiki) and I was not only able to view it up
| incredibly close and in detail but also it was a quiet time
| for visitors and I had the painting all to myself. I stared
| at it for minutes in a strange state of amazement brought
| on by not only how wonderful this Vermeer masterpiece was
| and that I was looking at it for real and it wasn't a dream
| but also that I could get so close and do so for so long
| given the work is worth many, many millions, it's
| effectively priceless. My experience was even more
| remarkable given that I was visiting the museum just after
| Rembrandt's _The Night Watch_ had been repaired, restored
| and put back on display after a maniac had slashed it with
| a knife.
|
| The other painting was a Rembrandt self portrait, it was in
| an alcove all on its own. Again, I had this truly
| remarkable painting all to myself to view close up. It was
| an incredible experience, with Rembrandt's eyes staring
| directly at me it felt as if he was talking to me. It
| shocked me that a painting that is over 350 years old and
| painted by someone many generations removed from today
| could generate such a large emotional response in me.
|
| I consider that particular visit to the Rijksmuseum (I've
| been there a number of times) as one of the most memorable
| experiences of my life and I consider it a great privilege
| that the museum provided me the opportunity to see these
| remarkable works up close and in depth.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_(Vermeer)
| pbronez wrote:
| "This is How You Lose the Time War" is brilliant. Highly
| recommend the audio book.
| dmd wrote:
| If anyone's in Minneapolis, see this theater production of
| Invisible Cities:
| https://www.southerntheater.org/shows/invisible-cities-a-
| toy... - it's fantastic.
| hammock wrote:
| Sold out :(
| loxias wrote:
| > "This Is How You Lose the Time War"
|
| No other book captured the feelings of being 20-something and
| flirting like reading this. Reading it felt like being right
| back there again, with all the excitement and anxiety. Highly
| recommended to anyone.
|
| Unsure how it connects to the notion of a brain filling in
| the blanks. I thought it was quite "filled in", but maybe my
| brain did it, and therefore I'm making your point for you :)
| ahoog42 wrote:
| Jonathan Sawday's 2023 book "Blanks, Print, Space, and Void
| in English Renaissance Literature: An Archaeology of
| Absence." [1] explores this phenomenon as well across
| multiple mediums.
|
| It also won the Modern Language Association's top award --
| the James Russell Lowell Prize for the most outstanding book
| published in 2023.
|
| [1] https://academic.oup.com/book/46695
| fcatalan wrote:
| You can also see that the hanging yellow part of the headscarf,
| he just winged it, effective as it might be.
|
| I paint as a sort of weekly ritual, just 2 hours every
| Wednesday evening, and did an inept copy of this as my first
| serious try. Months of staring closely at every little detail
| of it leave you in a sort of communion with the work and the
| artist.
|
| One thing you quickly learn is that the old masters were
| "impressionists" too. If you overwork stuff trying to perfect
| every shape with hundreds of precise brushstrokes, you end up
| with a naive, infantile looking painting that feels
| "unpainterly".
|
| Trying and failing to mimic that single quick brushtroke that
| fools the eye leaves you in awe, fully appreciating the
| mastery.
| pcblues wrote:
| Not sure if anyone here saw the movie Clueless, but a great
| quote was, "That guy is such a Monet. From a distance he looks
| great, but up close he's a real mess."
| amelius wrote:
| Yes from a distance the lips look moist/wet, but the cracks in
| the paint make them look dry, up close.
| parrit wrote:
| Your brain is analysing the light in the "room" when zoomed out
| and compared to that it looks moist. When you zoom in there is
| no reference. I think then the brain switches from "real scene"
| analysis to "abstract".
|
| It is a bit like those illusions where one grey looks darker
| than the other, based on surrounding shadows in the image and
| what the brain assumes... but the RGB values are the same.
| agumonkey wrote:
| A bit like how CRT era video games are horrible when viewed on
| modern LCDs. Designers and programmers walked around the device
| limits to get impressions out of it.
| hammock wrote:
| "Fill the gaps with your mind" is very broad, and applies to
| lighting, pointillism, etc a divers lot of things that are not
| obvious to a non-painter.
|
| But Vermeer is next level, especially for the time. A growing
| contingent of historians believe he used camera obscura to
| achieve the results
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockney%E2%80%93Falco_thesis
| theSuda wrote:
| I zoomed in and zoomed out instantly as soon as I realized it
| was breaking the illusion for me. I just love how our brain
| actually fills in these gaps.
| djmips wrote:
| I was immediately drawn to the faint text in the upper left. Meer
| I could read but it's the artist's signature.
| https://www.essentialvermeer.com/references/signatures/facsi...
| MaxRegret wrote:
| Steve Mould just released a video about the microscopy technique
| that was used to capture this 3D relief of the painting:
| https://youtu.be/o-dZKBwbsis
| petargyurov wrote:
| The microscope used for this is mind blowing. Falls squarely
| into the list of things I want but do not need.
| justsid wrote:
| After watching the video I was trying to find out just how
| much one of those microscopes cost. Couldn't find a price
| anywhere so I'm assuming it's far out of my budget. But this
| kind of video is probably the greatest kind of ad there is,
| just genuinely showing how cool something is. Don't have a
| use for it either though, but I would love to have one
| anyways.
| internetter wrote:
| Seems like a fun DIY project. Take an off the shelf digital
| microscope and attach motors!
| frainfreeze wrote:
| Was it the same approach? The 3D relief has artifacts akin to
| ones produced by heightmaps
| artimaeis wrote:
| Click the "3D" button on the bottom-center toolbar to see the
| 3D scan artifact.
| mxfh wrote:
| It's has 5x exaggerated height by default, so maybe that's
| what makes it look wonky. Looks way better by 1x.
|
| If you really want to capture the full visual information
| of a painting, you'd need full PBR-style data --
| reflective, refractive, subsurface properties --
| essentially the response of the surface from any viewing
| angle in the hemisphere, lit from at least a few fixed
| directions (like in a museum light setup). Even limited to
| the visible spectrum, this would massively increase the
| amount of data needed to represent the image accurately.
|
| The 2019 scan apparently deliberately removed reflections,
| even though they're an essential part of the artist's
| intended expression.
|
| Are there models that simulate the actual physical
| properties of paintings -- under artificial lighting,
| viewed from arbitrary angles? Seems like a worthwhile
| direction for preserving artworks beyond their flat 2D
| captures. It could also enable virtually accurate displays
| of art for single observers using head-tracked screens or
| VR.
|
| Might also be a promising use case for NERFs or 3D Gaussian
| Splatting.
| jedimastert wrote:
| This would line up with the approach talked about in the
| video. In very short terms, pictures were taken at various
| focus distances and height was defined as whichever distance
| was the sharpest. This would essentially make a 2D height map
| with all of the artifacts that would come with it
| Hobadee wrote:
| Crap quality; I can't make out the individual atoms.
| tehjoker wrote:
| I half expected it to proceed to optical light microscopy or
| even scanning electron microscopy but the latter would have
| toasted the painting with radiation damage.
| chrismcb wrote:
| I'm amazed at how fast this is.
| tehjoker wrote:
| It's like Google Maps. I didn't look under the cover but
| typically the way these things work is there's a resolution
| hierarchy and it loads bits dynamically as you zoom in. The
| zoom here is a bit slow (it doesn't let you slam into the
| painting at warp speed) so there is likely a bit of latency
| hiding as it loads high res tiles.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The trick to make it super fast is to predict _where_ the
| user might be viewing 1 second from now.
|
| If an animation is in progress, that's an easy prediction.
|
| If the user is using a mouse, they'll generally scroll or pan
| but not both.
|
| If the user is on a touch screen, again the gestures are
| limited.
|
| When you have your predictions, you start loading the those
| things.
| psychoslave wrote:
| I'm not versed enough in history of art to fully appreciate this
| painting and how it became so popular, could someone point me to
| some resources to improve my culture on the matter?
|
| Thanks in advance for any reply
| conductr wrote:
| The artist is well known for his use of light/shadow in his
| works and is probably going to be the first bullet on any list.
| Also known for expensive pigments, an unknown style/methods ,
| and being sloppy but extremely detailed depending on your
| vantage / distance. Zooming in on this one will highlight that
| happyraul wrote:
| I can recommend The Story of Art:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Art
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Thank you too from me. Ideally a youtube channel or channels
| archiepeach wrote:
| I very recently created an app that helps people learn art
| history.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/for-arts-sake/id6744744230
|
| It's a first version, and there's a lot more content and
| features to come, but it's actually already taught me so much
| making it!
| sn0wleppard wrote:
| John Berger's Ways of Seeing, I think it's all on youtube.
| There's also a book adaptation though I've not read that
| geuis wrote:
| This painting really needs some Baumgartner intervention.
|
| There are hints of overpainting around the right eye (left side
| facing us). Background plus eyebrow. Too smooth, doesn't have the
| same crackle as the rest of the painting.
|
| The veneer may be quite yellowed. Looking at the cloth on the top
| of the head over the blue fabric. Might originally be a bright
| white, but now appears yellowed due to exposure of the last
| veneer aging and yellowing under UV light.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| A man of culture I see :)
|
| I watch his restorations with onesie, but his narrative (when
| it's not technical) is tiring because it wants to be fancy but
| it sounds fake to me.
|
| His technical work looks great to me, I have no idea about
| conservation outside his videos. I heard that he got a lot of
| hate from conservators (which I do not understand) and actively
| fought critical comments on his videos (which I find petty).
|
| It's been two weeks he has not uploaded anything and it is
| annoying :)
|
| BTW I also watch cow hoof trimming and always wondered how many
| people have such weird lists of videos (art, hoof trimming,
| software dev, history, action movies, science, cooking, middle
| age, tables building, ...) - some I do a lit, some not (I saw a
| cow live twice)
| atombender wrote:
| My layperson's understanding regarding the criticisms against
| Julian Baumgartner is that he uses a lot of invasive methods
| that don't meet the strict technical standards employed by
| professional conservators, and this creates a misleading
| impression of what conservation actually is.
|
| For example, you will frequently see Baumgartner do over- and
| in-painting of fairly large areas that have been lost. Modern
| conservation has slowly evolved to distance itself from mere
| restoration; the objective of conservators who work for
| museums or major collections is to only apply non-invasive
| procedures that can bring the artwork closer to its original
| state (e.g. grime removal) and shore up the structural
| integrity of the physical object to preserve it, but without
| adding anything non-original if possible. Baumgartner claims
| that all his changes are reversible, but you still see him
| prying lacquer off with a scalpel, completely replacing the
| wood of wood-panel paintings, and many other techniques that
| cast doubt on those claims.
|
| I'm not a professional, so I can't judge whether all of this
| is accurate, but I find the drama fascinating. In the field
| of conservation, Baumgartner is an outsider, as he mentored
| under his father rather than study conservation in an
| academic setting. Baumgartner's videos look absolutely world-
| class, but he probably wouldn't meet the bar for
| qualifications imposed by major museums, which typically
| require a postgraduate degree in conservation, including
| formal training in chemistry. So there's probably an element
| of disdain for amateurs to the criticism, as well.
|
| To be clear, what Baumgartner does is probably perfectly
| acceptable for many artworks, where the owner's directive is
| to restore the artwork back to what it may have looked like
| when it was made. But I'm not sure he should touch a Vermeer.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| To me, it is a question of the specific artifact.
|
| You may want to have a painting (or other art) in the form
| it used to be - and then you look at a "whole" painting
| where you can imagine the object as a continuous thing to
| look at -- or at what time has done to it and just at the
| original parts.
|
| I like both, it really depends on what you are looking at.
| Venus of Milo is fine as it (mostly because I am used to
| it) and is quite unique. Fitting the arm back would turn it
| into yet another sculpture. Watching a detailed painting
| with a lot of losses would derail me from what is happening
| in the picture itself.
| curiousObject wrote:
| If someone is so skillful that they can restore the
| painting to its original state, then I think they would be
| skillful enough to make a perfect copy, so there's no need
| to tamper with the original work.
|
| Their expert copy of the work would be valuable and
| educational in itself, and avoid damaging the original
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Keep in mind many painters of the day would intentionally
| distort the perspective to compensate for the viewing angle.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homography
|
| Beauty is complicated, and imperfection itself can form a
| timeless lesson:
|
| https://sambourque.com/blog/kintsugi-beauty-in-imperfection
|
| In many ways, some suggest it is an allegory for how people
| grow throughout their life... and for others it is just broken
| pottery.
|
| Have a wonderful day, =3
| perks_12 wrote:
| The company behind this has a making of on YouTube:
| https://youtu.be/j_MvpMlgfwI?si=mK9LWleFBE8r_saz
| koliber wrote:
| When you zoom in on the cracks, you can see the bevel on the edge
| of the crack. That's incredible.
|
| In many places on the edges of the cracks in the dark background
| you can see tinges of blue or pink color. Is that from the
| lighting, or is the color actually there, if it is there, anyone
| have an idea why?
| flir wrote:
| I think I can see a repair on the left cheek? Line of lighter
| "filler" that seens to follow a crack?
| spyder wrote:
| Also at many places the cracks seems to be overpainted, filled
| in. I guess that's from the restorations...
|
| I just looked it up and there is a picture from an analysis
| where they are showing its possible state before the
| restoration:
|
| https://media.springernature.com/lw685/springer-static/image...
|
| "In UV fluorescence, the natural resin varnish layer fluoresces
| greenish, and areas retouched in 1994 can be distinguished from
| the original paint as they appear darker"
|
| The full paper:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s40494-019-0307-5
| padjo wrote:
| I thought it was cool. Then I saw the 3D button!
| fscaramuzza wrote:
| There are plenty of these here :)
|
| https://artsandculture.google.com/search/asset?project=art-c...
| roflmaostc wrote:
| There is a company doing the same for microscopy. Super large
| scale images of anything in the centimeter scale.
|
| https://gallery.ramonaoptics.com/gallery
| lvl155 wrote:
| Any work related to deconstructing these classic paintings? I've
| been thinking about an AI project where you basically analyze
| paintings based on brush strokes. The end result would be an
| animation of painting from blank canvas to completion.
| quantadev wrote:
| I knew everyone would immediately zoom into her mouth! If you
| look at the 3D view of it at a low angle it looks like the
| surface of Mars. Amazing.
| lerp-io wrote:
| needs a paintjob, its all chipping away
| CodeCompost wrote:
| When I visited the Mauritshuis when they were scanning it I
| managed to spot something looking like a Solaris workstation next
| to the scanner. I was kinda surprised to see it...
| Freak_NL wrote:
| It's a beautiful painting.
|
| I also can't stand the sight of it.
|
| It has been abused as a kitchy backdrop on so much tat and
| assorted items -- including wheelie bins, recycling bins, garden
| fences, pillows, phone covers, and posters -- to such an extent
| that it just oozes bad taste by implication.
|
| Poor girl.
| louthy wrote:
| I'm assuming you're in the Netherlands based on your NL suffix.
| Outside of the Netherlands it's rarely seen and so hasn't had
| the quite the abuse you state.
|
| I still think it's an absolutely stunning work of art
| (regardless of whether Vermeer used camera-obscura or not).
| eviks wrote:
| Is there a similarly detailed remastered version without all
| those cracks?
| Oarch wrote:
| This is nowhere near enough pixels. I want at least trillion. Go
| back and try again!
| todotask2 wrote:
| The painting is now like a Google maps.
| elcid60 wrote:
| Well at this resolution we see that is an erotic picture.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| Projects like this are fascinating for reasons, I guess,
| unintentional to their creators.
|
| Is what you can see at this level of detail helping anyone
| understand the painting?
|
| Someone thinks so. So what do we now know?
| WindyMiller wrote:
| I think projects like this help you develop a felt
| understanding of the painting as a unique physical artifact
| that is not fully reproduced by prints or scans.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| I now know there are somewhat rectangular 1mm length fibers
| embedded in the paint of this work. A secret only art
| preservationists knew prior.
| enigma101 wrote:
| This is amazing!!!!
| mindvirus wrote:
| Amazing, I feel like I'm zooming in to some alien city.
|
| I'm sure people are thinking about it, but with high resolution
| scanning, 3D printing, etc., it feels like it should be possible
| to create extremely high quality reproductions of famous artwork
| at scale, and at a fairly reasonable cost.
|
| Is anyone working on this?
| Someone wrote:
| https://www.codart.nl/feature/museum-affairs/3d-printing-wor...
|
| https://kutluart.com/collections/all
| mikae1 wrote:
| Lots of folks in the GLAM sector are working on it.
| dingdingdang wrote:
| Am I the only one here who is looking for the jpg?
| ridgeguy wrote:
| This scan should preclude forgery of the work. I doubt there's a
| way to duplicate the crack patterns that anyone can now refer to.
| hammock wrote:
| It would be crazy set of events to lose the provenance paper
| trail of this piece, at this point, cracks documents or not.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Paintings are not photographs. Paintings are not two-dimensional
| images. They are 3d sculptures that change based on light causing
| a million little shadows. Similarly, the paint has transparency
| and depth. A trillion pixels wouldn't be enough to convey the
| experience of actually being in the same room with such a
| painting.
| g42gregory wrote:
| Great tool for future artwork authentication.
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