Vermeer Painting
"Girl with a Pearl Earring"

A Question of

Perspective

The element of perspective in painting was foremost in Vermeer's day. Many treatises were written on it and many methods used to capture it correctly.

Many speculate that Vermeer used the "camera obscura," a device that helped painters see the perspective aspect of their work more clearly. Philip Steadman used Vermeer's perspective to determine how his studio might have been laid out. Steadman examined the vanishing point in Vermeer's paintings and calculated the distances between objects.

Other perspective devices were also in use at that time. I recreated one of them and put it by a table in the studio. It is a simple grid, with string used to mark off squares.

Using measurements gleaned from Vermeer's work, a model was constructed of his studio. Objects were placed in it and measurements were taken to ensure that the perspective was correct.