Cheating general

[Anonymous No.1764523]

Anyone else has seen this documentry called Tim's Vermeer? Has any of you used optical devices to create paintings? Do you have any advices? What is the most important thing I should take into account when painting with the help of mirror and lenses?

[Anonymous No.1764525]

>>1764523
If anyone is interested, this is the device that they use in the documentary.
Just a lense and two mirrors. No camera obscura.

[Anonymous No.1764528]

It's only cheating when you do it. It is a work tool when I do.

[Anonymous No.1764533]

Also, what happened with these things? Did anyone bought one?

[Anonymous No.1764538]

>>1764523
Lol I saw the documentary, it was interesting but full of bullshit, especially how Hockney just instantly is like "yup!! you're right!", and Penn knows zero about art, and the whole biological thing with the eye was bullshit too considering it was just a normal value thing he was painting and they didn't even use any science such as a control they just asked scientist some biology questions.

Anyways, you can go ahead and use the method if you want, it's incredible boring, time consuming, and in the end results in boring and stiff pseudo photographic finishes. It removes all the artistic decisions from the equation so can never produce good art.

[Anonymous No.1764550]

>>1764538
>the whole biological thing with the eye was bullshit too considering it was just a normal value thing he was painting and they didn't even use any science such as a control they just asked scientist some biology questions.
That wasn't the point of the documentary and the neural circuits that form visual perception have been greatly studied. No need to look for controls on something that has been proved many times in the last 40 years.

>It removes all the artistic decisions from the equation
Not really, they're just taken at a different point of the process

>boring, time consuming
Well, yes, but it's certainly faster than spending 40 years on perfecting your skills

>can never produce good art
Don't be so judgamental, anon

[Anonymous No.1764554]

>>1764538
I think some old masters used this technique though and their works are considered master pieces.

[Anonymous No.1764555]

>>1764538
>it can never produce good art
yeah because nobody thinks vermeer was good. also the process can't stop an artist from making artistic decisions, and vermeer certainly needed artistic training to make his paintings look as good as they do. also there's no point in saying its invalidated by photography when it was essentially a substitute for photography before the medium was popularized. it's certainly gimmicky today.

[Anonymous No.1764558]

>>1764550
The eye thing they argued was that he painted one corner of the room slightly darker than the other corner, and the difference is said to not be visible to the human eye since they are far apart. It's a stupid comment since it is obvious the corner farther from the lightsource will be slightly darker than the one closer to it due to light falloff. And when I asked for controls, I meant they didn't check the values of the corners of the room in paintings done by people who we know didn't use any aids.

As for the creativity part, sure you can come up with a nice composition, but the actual painting itself and the palette and brushwork and everything else is lost since this method produced the same finish every single time.

Lastly, I would rather spend my life doing paintings in a more intuitive way and without the aids since in 40 years I will have A) produced more art, B) enjoyed the process more, C) learned a lot more about art and light, and D) will be producing better paintings than this method can ever do.

[Anonymous No.1764559]

>>1764555
I'm not convinced vermeer did use the method, and while he is a good painter I would not consider him to be one of the great masters.

[Anonymous No.1764567]

>>1764558
>The eye thing they argued was that he painted one corner of the room slightly darker than the other corner, and the difference is said to not be visible to the human eye since they are far apart

It's a well known mechanism of the brain, see this optical illusion. Perception of the contrast is dependant on the context, and the encoding of the visual information in the brain is done by a "map". Different points of the eye are represented in different zones of the brain.
If two points are far apart a few degrees we cannot discern contrast well because the visual information of both points is processed in different parts of the brain.

[Anonymous No.1764570]

>>1764523
can anyone explain this whole thing babby mode, ive watched the trailer but im not getting it.
thanks

[Anonymous No.1764571]

>>1764559
well, he is considered an old master, so that's too bad I guess. You don't have to consider him a great master because that's not a thing. He's generally considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age though

Also if anyone knows where to download tim's vermeer, that'd be swell.

[Anonymous No.1764572]

>>1764567
Yes I'm aware of that, but the fact of the matter is artists are well versed with relativistic values. A bit of theory will let you compensate for the eye not being able to detect the difference easily. It's how every other artist could paint things and make them look correct.
Additionally, all it takes is mixing a bit of paint then holding your brush up in front of each of the corners and checking the value.

[Anonymous No.1764574]

>>1764570
>>1764570
camera lucida projects an image from real life onto the table in front of you, and you trace/paint over that image. photobashing for old masters.

[Anonymous No.1764575]

>>1764570
see
>>1764525
The scene is focused by the lens, reflected amplified by the concave mirror. The artist is next to the small mirror, where he sees the reflection of the scene (backwards) from the concave mirror. Then paints around the edges of the mirror until it matches the tone. Moves the head, moves the mirror and keeps painting different parts of the scene.

[Anonymous No.1764580]

>>1764571
https://thepiratebay.se/search/tim%27s%20vermeer/0/0/0

[Anonymous No.1764610]

>>1764523

So how Vermeer painted the View of Delft if he was such a hack? Did the clouds stop in the sky for months just for him?

How do we know it had the same quality and beauty of the original painting?
Because they say so?

[Anonymous No.1764711]

In the context of his time, before photography, it's out of this world. And is likely a well-guarded trade secret, and artists from another city-state and/or guild probably has their own trade secret going on for them - may it be a different use for lens (which may be inferior to Vermeer's) or a hold on particular pigments, artmaking methods (like using grids, etc.), and tools.

Since most people at the time are not familiar with the use of lens for this purpose, it's blowing their minds whether they know the method or not (but more so if these people who saw the paintings didn't know).

To put this in a modern context, imagine if there's only one film company has all that green screen technology, and nobody else knows that such a technology exists nor know how to use it if they grab a hold of it. That was an equivalent in its time.

But Hockney may have failed to consider (or just plain dismisses - this isn't new stuff folks, this argument had been around a long time) that it is still possible to replicate the results without the use of those tools. It may take more work - just think that just like in films you can make explosions via green screen, but you can still do the same with real explosives.

[Anonymous No.1764716]

>>1764523
Today I did a little self portrait using a couple of mirrors so one eye saw my reflection and the other the screen. It was a very nice excercise, and I liked the result after 2.5 hours

However, my setup was somewhat feeble and also it gave me a headache at the beginning.

Anybody know what tools used the old masters when doing self portraits? There must be something better than the usual mirror besides the screen.

[Anonymous No.1764730]

>>1764523
In truth there's nothing wrong with using different tools, mechanical tricks or standard training and effort, to achieve certain results.

Where people find umbrage with these kinds of investigations or suppositions that a particular old master may have used mechanical means to achieve a high level of polish is that it somehow devalues all the work that goes into it, or that it somehow means there is no longer any artistic input. As though it no longer takes dedication, vision and talent to be able to create and fabricate a painting with such methods. As though it's a "shortcut" that devalues all the work by other artists. As though in the modern day photographers (the eventual extension of this technique,) are somehow less creative or capable of artistic input than traditional painters.

In truth only sycophants and similarly sycophantic art-snobs, who want to dictate what is "artistic" and what isn't, are concerned with the methods involved in the creation of a piece. What matters is whether the artist achieved their goal, if they conveyed what they intended to convey to the audience. If they achieved that result using a camera obscura, the tilted mirror as shown in the film, or some other mechanical means, then good for them. The technique in the film will not replicate more impressionistic flourishes, and will only be capable of producing a 1:1 translation of the scene. It cannot edit or exaggerate without deliberate effort, which of course would just be traditional painting.

So if Vermeer did use a similar method, which is certainly possible if the film is to be trusted, he's still a fantastic artist who created some fantastic pieces. He didn't "cheat," he arrived at the end product via a different avenue that likely took just as much work and investigation as if he weren't using the mirror.

[Anonymous No.1764801]

>>1764575
Another capture of the process

[Anonymous No.1764802]

>>1764801
The artist's point of view

[Anonymous No.1764805]

This was the Tim's vermeer copy

[Anonymous No.1764806]

I didnt even read the thread, but for one thing, there's no such thing as cheating in art. It all depends on what you want to practice and what you think is important. I personally restrict myself to the most basic hand eye measurement, but that's only because I want to train that part of my skills.

The documentary interesting to watch, but I would take it with the tiniest grain of salt. Hockney claims that Vermeer wouldn't have been able to paint like he did without some of the methods used in the film, but it's been done again and again by modern master. In fact, it's done even better by modern masters. Vermeer seriously isn't the best draftsman.
I don't know why Hockney is used as a consultant in any way in the movie either, he's such a shitty painter when it comes to techniques.

[Anonymous No.1764809]

He's a fucking lunatic thinking that most great masters used techniques like this. It's a typical "I can't do it so how could they?"-mindset. However, to be fair, he might be right regarding Vermeer.

[Anonymous No.1764811]

Who wants to dedicate their life to copying artwork? If you don't learn the fundamentals there's no hope for you to create original art aside from collages.

[Anonymous No.1764812]

>>1764523

It's like a Michael Moore documentary: very manipulative. He has a single thesis and he shows only what proves it forgetting all the rest.

Though it's not impossible that Vermeer used the camera obscura or lens. But the fact Tim did it that way doesn't mean Vermeer followed the same road.

Also Hockney said that Caravaggio and other old painters probably used tricks and they were a sort of copymachine.
How can he explain that Roberto Ferri nowadays makes stages where he paints live and he is able to replicate a technique very similar to Caravaggio?

[Anonymous No.1764813]

>>1764554
I agree. It's a well known and widely accepted fact that this is what the old masters did. The "I make REAL art" without aids are the same faggots who post on the photography board about using any post production.

>muh genius myth

I really do feel sorry for them

[Anonymous No.1764819]

http://flyingfox.jonathanjanson.com/2014/06/21/tims-vermeer-from-a-a-painters-point-of-view/

[Anonymous No.1764822]

>>1764730

I agree with everything you said, but I'd suggest the people you talk about aren't art snobs but just a different kind of pleb.

Plebs come in as many varieties as there are pant shitting stories on 4chan. But their defining feature is ignorance. The people who cling to the genius myth, who want nothing more than for their masters to use less aids then they have, are indulging in their own ignorance. They want to cling to their pure art delusion and they wont stop posting about it.

[Anonymous No.1764871]

>>1764805

Looking at the two of them it feels like Tim forgot to paint some shit. Where there should be more shadows there isn't. I mean, I know he literally copied from life, but his version still seems really off. For example, why is there no shadow beneath the bass thing and around the other instruments legs?

[Anonymous No.1765190]

>>1764805
looks as shitty and amateurish as you would expect

[Anonymous No.1765194]

>>1764871
because tim isn't half a good a painter as vermeer. the tool itself will only get you so far, you gotta know whats up to stitch it together and make it work.