Art exhibition reveals Vermeer's secrets using technology to look under paintings

Judy: There is big new in the art world. A painting thought to be by vermeer is not so after all. Even take one away and it's a big deal. New technology allowing experts to see art and a different way and help make these judgments. Jeffrey brown visited the national gallery of art and Washington, D.C. For the arts and culture series canvas. >> The painting is called girl with the flu and though there have been questions about it in the past, it is one of the museums works by Johannes premier. Girl with the flute is something else. >> There are so many headlines. It's not fake. >> If it is not a vermeer, is it diminished? Is it a lesser painting? >> I think we are closer to vermeer than ever when we look at this. >> There were just around 35 paintings definitively credited to vermeer. A small number for such a renowned artist. He was the focus of a major forgery scandal. The exhibition shows two paintings that once held in the -- hung in the gallery as authentic. A large group of the real ones as a national gallery did is a big event in the art world. She points to the painting woman holding a ballast. >> An extraordinary sense of stillness and tranquility. And when you look at a painting like this, you know the sun is coming in through this window, but he hides it and it allows this light to fall so gently on her face. >> It now offers a different kind of portrait of the artist below the surface at the underpainting. Sometimes multiple layers of sketches, brushstrokes, and the paint itself. And how more refined cameras like those that do remote sensing of the Earth and space can appear underneath without damaging the paintings and find hidden images. However angle was suddenly shifted to change the overall effect. Or an unknown man studying the images and chemical components to allow scientists to create a map to offer clues to how an artist works. >> We're are looking at the fingerprint and you can see the paint strokes. >> The senior imaging scientist came to this work in 2007 from the aerospace industry and now he builds cameras to look at art. >> In the lab, he and colleague Catherine Dooley demonstrated on a painting by another well-known Dutch artist, rembrandt. This can capture the work beneath the face we see on the canvas. >> Especially in the shadow area, the one side of his face goes over here. But a lot of these are not at the surface level. >> The side-by-side images show the handling of paint and materials. >> It's a very different way of looking at a painting. >> It is much more abstract. >> Some people say the images we make are very abstract. But the texture of the paint is the process. >> One key thing they wanted to know is how girl with the flute compared to the other paintings and it's the differences that emerged in these digital maps and images that led to the determination it is by a different artist. >> It's the layering, the handling on the surface. And we also see it low and in the preparation of the paint. >> It is all interpretive. >> They are confident it is not by vermeer but it is close. Perhaps by someone who learned some of the masters techniques but not all. He was thought to work alone and his findings could begin to change that. >> And who could have done this? >> Would that I know. I hope is that museums will look at the imitators, especially the ones that they know are 17th-century because maybe we can really start to understand how maybe vermeer was teaching or who this artist may have been. There are more out there. I feel it. >> Imaging expert John Delaney says the scientist to leave following and more museums are using it. >> Wait five more years and people will know a lot more about these artists. >> A pretty exciting time. >> We are on exhibition through January 8. Jeffrey brown at the national gallery of art. >> Earlier today in The Hague and the Netherlands, climate activists targeted girl with a pearl in her ring with the glue and liquid, the latest in a series of recent attacks. This video showed one man pouring a can of red substance over another protester who appeared to attempt to glue his head to the glass protected painting. Officials say the painting was not damaged.

Channel: PBS NewsHour

Views: 68,504

Keywords: Johannes Vermeer, national art gallery washington dc, vermeer, vermeer painting, new technology, art and culture news, art news, art history

Id: 9Mqv0WkHtJE

Length: 6min 20sec (380 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2022