[dewarrn1]

It's an appealing hypothesis, but there's some compelling evidence to the contrary [0]. I'm not an expert, but this could potentially fall under the heading of pop history or pseudohistory.

[0] https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4707

[adastra22]

Watch Tim’s Vermeer. The camera obscura doesn’t work (for similar reasons as mentioned in the article). Don’t want to spoil it, but Tim comes up with a very low tech solution that fits all the evidence.

[dewarrn1]

It sounds like a compelling film. Seeing now that it's produced by Penn & Teller's team, it makes me wonder about this fits into their "juggler vs. magician" dichotomy. The implication of that duo producing the film suggests that they might believe that Vermeer's reputation as an extraordinarily skilled artist ("juggler") might in fact be the result of Vermeer's use of a sophisticated apparatus that tricked patrons and viewers into thinking that he had extraordinary abilities, thus making Vermeer a master faker ("magician"). Or maybe they simply wanted to spur debate.

[adastra22]

Yes, it is a story narrated by Penn and Teller (well, just Penn). I don’t recall them ever speaking negatively about Vermeer for having used a contraption to get perfect perspective. And the contraption that Tim comes up with is super simple—basically a dental mirror. If anything, they speak very positively about the ingenious of the method, and seemed to respect Vermeer greatly, if I remember correctly.