I recently visited the original sites where Vermeer created beautiful, photograph-like canvasses: a corner in Delft, Holland, for example. And the pictures themselves, hanging in the Rijksmuseem -- the milkmaid, for example (https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/artists/johannes-vermeer).
These are striking, detailed images of how people lived in the 1600s in Holland. And they are masterpieces. What if Vermeer was using tricks to create these pieces?
I might have to go to Hobart, Tasmania, to see this art show, made by a guy who spent years trying to prove that Vermeer used mirrors to paint his incredibly detailed scenes. It's called "Hound in the Hunt" (http://www.mona.net.au/hith) and is a live experiment to have everyday people partake in this test of the hypothesis that, well, Vermeer "cheated" to create his paintings.
This guy Tim Jenison figured it out (here's the trailer to the doc that describes it in just enough tantalizing detail):
Was Vermeer "a machine," as the documentary made by Penn & Teller asks? Was he simply copying from the live image projected onto his canvas through a mirror?
And what if other great artists used the same trick? The New York Times just ran a story that suggests something similar about Rembrandt, that he used mirrors to get such realism in his portraits. The story (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/science/rembrandt-old-master-optics-mirrors.html) is based on this original research just published in a journal with which I am unfamiliar (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2040-8978/18/8/080401), the Journal of Optics. It's all about the mirrors. It makes sense that artists knew about these "tricks" at the time and were sharing techniques, or were rediscovering these methods for themselves.
Today we use "tricks" like Photoshop filters to manipulate instantaneous images snapped with digital cameras. If Vermeer, Rembrandt and others were using this mechanical trick, does that diminish their art?
I could ask the same about photography: Are photos any less of an art form in our world today than paintings? We talk about talented photographers (and skilled painters). Framing an image is key. Being there is important and knowing what to capture on film, as well as taking the time and patience to do it. So was painting realistic images with tools like mirrors.
We can still make art using modern tools; it's just a bit less time-consuming sometimes to make great images than, say, the great masters' paintings from several centuries ago. And that doesn't stop some of us from making art the "old fashioned way" either.