Tim Jenison, a Texas-based inventor, attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in the art world: 
How did Dutch master Johannes Vermeer manage to paint so photo-realistically 150 years before the invention of photography?

Vermeer’s paintings are legendary for their realism, and many have speculated that he must have used some sort of optical technology, like the camera obscura, to get that result.

In fact, this does not work. The light projected by the lens obscures the color of the paint you are applying to the canvas. It makes the paint look too dark and too colorful. You must constantly turn on the light to see what color you have actually painted.

There is simply no way to accurately compare the paint color to the projection.

The way Vermeer painted this wall is consistent with a photograph. It is not consistent with human vision. The retina in your eyeball does some image processing to minimize the effect of light and shadow.

To your eye, the wall appears to have far less contrast than it actually has. Vermeer, unlike other painters, painted his walls the way a photographic camera would record it.

But what about something even simpler, using technology amply available at the time?

Specifically, a mirror. Which is exactly what Tim Jenison – with some assistance from Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller fame – decided to test.

There’s a ton more about what they did to test the theory in the full article at boingboing – these guys did not shit around when they set up their experiment. They even made their own lens using historical techniques – since of course modern lenses are actually too good to provide an accurate test of their theory.

Check out a trailer of “Tim’s Vermeer” documentary describing the whole experiment:

Via boingboing for the full article.