Light and Mirrors

A Texas inventor and self-described non-artist has recreated the masterpiece of a Renaissance realist master using controversial techniques. The controversy part naturally attracted Penn & Teller, who made a documentary about it, Tim's Vermeer, airing this coming February. Essentially, this guy has proven something that iconoclasts in the art world have alleged for years: the realist masters "cheated" -- i.e., they used optical machines to assist them in recreating reality.

Far from cheapening their works, I think it makes them even more impressive. Those men harnessed primitive technology to turn themselves into human cameras. Their paintings provide us with an accurate looking glass into a world which hasn't existed for centuries. What difference does it make how they accomplished it?

I was once admonished by an art teacher for creating charcoal drawings from photographs. She told me that "real artists" don't paint from photographs. I responded: "Well, I guess I'm not a real artist, then. Can I get back to drawing now? Because, you know... I like it." Art teachers and experts very often miss the point of art, in my experience.