Our story begins with 17th century painter Johannes Vermeer. He is known for the photorealistic detail in his paintings and his use of light and color. The mystery is, did he (and other old world masters as far back as the early 1400s) use optical projections or some otherwise unknown devices to paint their masterpieces. […]
secret knowledge
A bright room: The controversy over the use of optics by early painters
Chris Miller originally sent me an email to tell me there was a new “camera lucida” device, a NeoLucida, available online (they had previously sold out when they were initially offered through Kickstarter.com). The name was familiar, I used a Lucigraph for years to size and trace various elements of illustrations—the same basic idea. But […]