Posted in: On Vermeer, Vermeer Exhibitions, Vermeer: Digital Imagery & WWW
on Saturday, September 26th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Tags: Milkmaid, Vermeer video
Essential Vermeer Time is an open door onto the spinning wheels, grinding cogs, ideas, inspirations, doubts and dreams that make the Essential Vermeer website run full steam ahead.
You'll find information about what’s currently under development and way down the pipeline, an occasional opinion as well as bits and pieces of what I come across skimming the web that may not wind up anywhere in the Essential Vermeer but seem worth noting.
And, obviously, you'll find the latest Vermeer news, practically real time.
Jonathan Janson, author of Essential Vermeer - Rome, Italy
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After 12 years , it has evolved into a 951 MB (on hard drive) Vermeer resource with over 500 web pages, 3,000 images, 200 audio files, bibliographies, interviews with Vermeer notables and scores of innovative interactive studies, including the innovative Complete Interactive Vermeer Catalogue.
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To maintain constant progress and the highest quality of Essential Vermeer's contents, I devote on the average 5 hours a day to doing research, writing, code, graphics and optimization. Editing and reediting practically never finishes. And then, there's always the all-important communication. Broken down, let’s say I spend about 1 hour after breakfast, 2 after lunch and 2 to 3 in the evenings working on the site. Weekends often get out of hand, marathon style and Sunday-night soar eyes.
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Many thanks from those who are not able to visit this really extraordinary show.
Special compliments to the didactic treatment (wall with all currently existing Vermeer-paintings; where else does one find such extensive explaining texts to each painting – reducing at least the disturbing audio-guides; period objects rendered in the Milkmaid – only a real footwarmer is missed although still available on Dutch Antique markets…) and the tasteful presentation (the walls’ warm yellow echoing Vermeer’s famous combination of lemon-yellow and yellow ocher). Only the lighting seems quite dark – not favorable for closer studying, but certainly enhancing the paintings’ magic.
My sincerest congratulations to the responsible Director and his staff!
ARech
Paul, that is a really etinxcig and important question that you’re asking, and I believe the answer is a resounding yes. You can match colors in the scene exactly, note for note. There are devices on the market for matching color swatches to spots in the scene by means of a little hand-held viewer. These are usually used by still life painters. Matte painters also used to paint scene extension on glass outdoors that perfectly matched (from the camera’s POV) the colors and values of a scene. Of course this only works as long as there are not elements in the scene that go beyond the range of the pigments, like bright sun highlights, etc.