Girl with a Pearl Earring, c. 1665-1666, is astonishing as much for the ethereal beauty of the sitter as for its departure from the Dutch norm of painting every elaborate detail of nature, no matter how inconsequential.

The broad economical style in which Vermeer painted this portrait is in stark contrast to many of his other, highly meticulous, works. Of significance is the manner in which Vermeer paints several elements in soft focus.

Thesehazy details are what many art historians have pointed to as being the characteristic mark of employing an optical manner of working and subsequently lead to their belief that Vermeer was aided by a camera obscura when creating Girl with a Pearl Earring and other works such as Girl with a Red Hat.

What came to be known as the camera obscura, a term first used the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1604, was already known in the 5th Century B.C.. The discovery that lightshone through a pinholeproduced an inverted image on the wall of a darkened room was first made by the Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle had made similar observations in the 4th century B.C., when he noted that, “sunlight travelling through small openings between the leaves of a tree, the holes of a sieve, the openings wickerwork, and even interlaced fingers will create circular patches of light on the ground."

Girl with a Red Hat c.1665

It was not, however, until around 1550, when additional features such as a mirror and a convex lens were added, that the sharpness of focus, the depth of field and the size of the aperture were able to be improved.

The question of whether Vermeer used a camera obscura remains controversial. Since there is no documentary evidence to support this, the only source of information we can turn to is the paintings themselves.

A precursor to the modern camera but without a film or plate, the camera obscura did not allow for complete precision. The lenses, albeit improved by the mid-1600s, did not focus crisply the way a modern camera does. This lead to a softening of the depth of fields and created gently rounded edges; effects evidenced in Girl with a Pearl Earring.

There is such economy in Girl with a Pearl Earring that no distinct stroke is offered to distinguish her right cheek from the right side of her nose; rather each is awarded exactly the same tone and colour. The front of the girl’s headdress is reduced to only two shades of ultramarine: one paler than the other.

Camera obscura in in an 18th century French encyclopedia

Two kinds of camera obscura, a booth and a portable, would probably have been accessible to Vermeer. With the extremely fine gradations of modelling and tone of the girl's face, perceptible only in very favourable lighting not afforded by the darkness of a booth, it seems most probable that Vermeer would have used a portable camera obscura for this work.

Since it seems highly likely that Vermeer, and many other significant artists, utilised optical equipment in their work, it is strange that there can often be such a stigma attached to painting from photographs. Artists using a photographic image to paint from are sometimes accused of requiring a visual crutch or using a photograph as an ‘easy’ means of creating a work of art.

This point of view seems unnecessarily condescending and becomes fundamentally irrelevant when viewing the finished works of celebrated artists who are known to have used such optical aids.

Sir Joshua Reynolds and Canaletto used a camera obscura to create some of their finest works. Indeed, Canaletto’s camera obscura can be seen at the Correr Museum in Venice and Sir Joshua Reynolds’ camera obscura is housed at the Science Museum in London.

No matter how an image is transferred to a canvas, the artist's presence will besensed through their brushstrokes. A painting in oils is an object that can be treasured and appreciated past, present and future.

Rachel Smith, 2009 - United Kingdom