Artists and the Camera Obscura

Long before the idea was conceived to permanently record optical images through chemical processes--the essence of photography--the means were available to produce the images themselves. The camera obscura is a simple optical device that had been available for hundreds of years. It could project an image of the world onto a wall or screen, much as a modern camera captures an image before storing it digitally or on film. The name camera obscura, Latin for "dark room," is a simple description of the first such device. A pinhole in the side of a dark room is used to project a precise image of the outside scene on the inside wall opposite the hole.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) described the phenomenon as early as the 4th century B.C. Chinese and Muslim scholars developed models more than a thousand years ago. In the late 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) wrote about the camera obscura in one of his notebooks. There is no evidence that Leonardo actually used the device in creating his own drawings and paintings. But he clearly described its possible application to art. It was thus inevitable that other artists would experiment with this simple technology to bring real-life images onto a two-dimensional surface. Human vision analyzes optical phenomena through complex mental processes. It involves the mind as well as the eye. The camera obscura could reproduce the building blocks, the pure optical effects, with a degree of realism that was until then unimaginable.

The most obvious limitation to the early camera obscura was that the projected image was extremely faint. Only the brightest objects, such as the sun itself, could produce a crisp image. Therefore, the most common early usage was for astronomical observations. In particular, scientists could study eclipses and other solar phenomena without risking damage to the eyes.

A significant advance occurred in the 16th century with the addition of a convex lens in place of the simple pinhole. The lens made it possible to concentrate more light into the image. This made it brighter, sharper, and easier to read. Eventually, this facilitated the creation of the camera obscura as a smaller, more portable box. By the 18th century many uses were found for the camera obscura. One was making exact copies, sometimes enlarged or reduced, of maps and other similar objects.

Since the advent of modernism and the rise of abstraction in painting during the early 20th century, we have come to think of realism as but one mode of art, one option among many in choosing an approach to painting or drawing. Before the invention of photography in the 19th century, a stated goal of much Western art was to present and preserve a lifelike image of the world. Indeed, it was generally assumed for centuries that the most important goal in any pictorial representation was that the object depicted be as similar to the object itself as possible. The camera obscura was able to produce a precise two-dimensional image of an actual three-dimensional object or scene. It introduced an entirely new set of possibilities.

It is hardly surprising to learn that artists experimented with optical technology. Although clear information is rare as to which artists used the device and to what extent, many famous painters are associated with the camera obscura. The British painter Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) owned one. And the camera obscura that once belonged to the Italian master Antonio Canal (1697-1768), better known as Canaletto, is now preserved in the Museo Correr in Venice. An intriguing 1770 drawing of Windsor Castle by Thomas Sandby, now in the collection of Queen Elizabeth II, is inscribed "drawn in a camera T. S." The inscription indicates a certain pride in the achievement.

Of all the artists who may have used a camera obscura, none has attracted more attention than the 17th-century Dutch master Jan Vermeer (1632-1675). In examining Vermeer's Girl with the Red Hat (1665-1666; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), the viewer is taken with the reflected highlights that are similar to "circles of confusion." Such effects are common in photography but alien to human vision. 

When a camera is slightly out of focus, a reflected highlight appears, not in the shape of the reflective surface, as the naked eye would see it, but rather as a round ball of light, a so-called circle of confusion. In another Vermeer painting, The Letter Reader (ca. 1657; Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden), the contrast between the blurriness of the carpet on the table in the foreground and the sharper focus of the woman in the middle distance exactly mimics the effect produced by a modern camera.

It is unlikely, however, that Vermeer used the camera obscura to create these paintings. The limited technology of the period would have made it difficult to paint such a masterly work from the image of an unwieldy camera obscura. The authors of the catalogue to the 2001 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition Vermeer and the Delft School made an important observation. It is far more likely that Vermeer studied the distinctive qualities produced through a camera obscura and used these discoveries as he would any other visual experience. The master painter most likely added them to his pictorial vocabulary and utilized them in his own way within his work.