By Laura J Snyder
Library Book
Who would have thought that two great geniuses in optics would be living right across the street from each other and perfecting their crafts within hailing distance of each other. Leuwenhoek, would dicover a whole new world as yet unseen by anyone else with deziens he would call "animacules." Meanwhile, across the street, Vermeer would perfect the use of a device called the camera obscura to bring three dimensional light and shadowsnto a two dimensional painting. I love the premise of this book. Can't wait to get into it.
7 The 1600's were a time of scientific revolution. The motto was trust no man, observe for yourself. This period was detailed wonderfully in Holmes "Age of Wonder." At the heart of it all was the revolution in optics allowing things heretofore invisible to be studied. And Vermeer said,"Let there be light."
134 So the term camera.obscura is misleading. While is does "obscure" the.image.to a.certain degree, it enhances many aspects. CContempories wrote "that the camera obscura displayed more than ould be seen with the naked eye." In addition,"it revealed optical laws and the way light works." Art and science hand in hand.
135 The Dutch were natural collectors, with their home "cabinets" displaying the ecclectic of items from around the world.
137 Painters in the Dutch Golden Age emloyed a sense of realism in their paintings. But the artists also had to be skillful enough to use illusion to.trick the eye as well.
141 Experiments would prove the eye to be nature's camera obscura.
144 There is evedence that suggests the first use of the camera.obscura ny Vermeer was for his "only know cityscape...A View of Delft."
145 The Procuress and The Sleeping Maid both show sings of faulty prospective, ie the split screen in the former and the table in the latter, that appear resolved with later paintings. This is seen as a new familiarity with the camera.obscura.
149 Davinci taught us that even shadows have colors. This is a concept I had never thought of before. This shows in the dark blue shading of tje woman's blue wrap in The Milkmaid.
157 Vermeer, instead of tracing images with his camera obscura, used it more as a guide and to play around with the scene before committing it to canvas. Vermeer was in no was a slave to it.
160 The author speculates that the man in The Geogrpher, pictured on the cover of this book, is Leuwenhoek. Not sure about that though.
167 The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ended the 80yrs was and gave Independence to the Dutch Republic. It also ened the 30yrs war in the Holy Roman Empire.
192 Where science is in agreement with the church, it flourishes: Where it is not, it dies.
198 Hookenalergic to paint, puts down the brush and picks up the microscope. He coinsnthe term cell for the "little boxes" he sees in his observations.of a cork. Art and science. Hooke's Microgrphia was published in 1665.
207 1672 Rampjaar the year of catastrophe dawned and With the attack of the French and English, Vermeer joins the Army.
212 Vermeers "specular" higjlights is a.good.topic for further study. The master of light and shadow continues.to amaze.
215 "What Vermeer was painting was the way the eye actually sees, not the way the mind thinks it sees." The human eye, in conjuction with the brain, automaticall adjusts vision to "make sense" of the input. What you see is the end result of this play. Vermeer understood this and tried to omit this "after bias" by painting what the eye actually sees and not the adjustment.
216 Not overly prolific,"Vermeer painted 45 pictures in total, of which roughly 35 are known to us today.
Vermeer loved maps and globes,"[this] obsession beomes apparent in Vermeer's later works." Vermeer used this device "9 times in all, [and] 4 times in his final 9 pictures."
234 Although never published in book form, like Hooke's Micrographia, Leewenhoek's observations were published in the form of letters to the Royal Society.
239 One of the recurring metaphors throughout this book is "making the invisible, visible.
Public disections became a.form of public entertainment, but you were not allowed to take home any parts. Hey whole stole the liver? Come on, give it up. I guess its not anymore grusome than an episode of CSI.
243 For a sjort while, in this period [1600's], that the woman amd man must achieve orgasm in order to conceive. Goos thing that wasnt the case or there wouldn't have been many babies. Man first discovered orgasm at the dawn of time. Women first discovered orgasms...oh around 1967.
250 And then, in a letter to the Royal Society dated Setember 7, 1674,Leewenhoek first reported on seeing his "animacules."
253 "Imagine the shock of realizing, for the first time, that wayer contained a wholenworld of living creatures completely invisible to the naked eye. Up to that time the objects were all inanimate. For the first time a living world was viewed in plain water. This was truly a "day the universe changed."
261 Scientists and others of this time.were reluctant to give away the secrets of how they acoomplished what they did. The tradition of alchemy was to comceal by code names and such to disguise what was really happening in their experiments. There are some who belive old nusery rymes contain specific recipes for experiments. Again, the church was not.jappynwith this type of experiments and even Newton realized tjis and keep his side experiments occult. The fact that Leewenhoek would tell the Royal Society the details of how he did things, infuriated them.
264 Hooke, at this time, was more interested in the study of light and not available to afirm or refure Leewenhoek for the Society, fornwhich he was later censured. He was too busy arguingnwith Newton over what made up light. He proposed it was waves and Newton thought it was particles. Later Einstein, like the Miller Beer commercial, would say "stop you're both right."
266 Then, November 15, 1677, it happened. Hooke was finally available and able.to replicate Leewenhoek. The society members marveled at what they saw as though first looking into "Chapman's Homer."
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