Hi, Philip Steadman speculates in the book about a possible connection between Fabritius and Vermeer. Vermeer owned some of Fabritius's paintings, as well as work by van Hoogstraten, another painter who was at the very least familiar with the camera obscura. Apparently in Delft Vermeer was described as a phoenix that rose from the flames of the explosion that killed Fabritius.
I hope you take your photo of the view of Delft and post it to the list - I for one would be fascinated to see it. --- Bob mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Friday, June 28, 2002, 7:56:00 AM, you wrote: > Bob Walken wrote: > In some ways photography has been around since at least the Middle > Ages. There's a fascinating book by Philip Steadman called "Vermeer's > Camera" in which the author argues that Vermeer used a camera obscura > to paint his most famous works. He makes a very good case. > Yes, maybe or probably, Vermeer did. > Absolutly sure is that his collegue, a painter called Johan Fabritius, > living like Vermeer in Delft, used such a camera. > There's a painting left in which he has painted the new church in Delft > with a kind of fish-eye wideangle lens. The picture can be seen at > http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/f/fabritiu/view_del.html > The exact spot in Delft, the church, the houses, all still exist, and > it has been one of my plans for a long time to try and make a similar > "real" photograph, apporaching the original as much as possible (maybe > with a Pentax and a fish-eye, maybe with a Horizont panoramic camera - > just have to see what matches best. > Fabritius became only 32, was killed in the big gunpowder explosion in > Delft. Probably not many paintings were made by him, or at least did > survive. > Regards, > John - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
