A fascinating dive into the realm of artistic impossibility and technological innovation, “Tim’s Vermeer” is a voracious, hands-on examination of the works of 17th century painter Johannes Vermeer.
The film focuses on Vermeer’s mysteriously perceptive portrayal of light, contributing to his stunningly photo-realistic paintings. Tackling the Vermeer mystery is our protagonist in the documentary: contemporary Renaissance man and engineer-inventor, Tim Jenison.
The world has remembered Vermeer as a painter, but in the film Jenison attempts to prove that Vermeer might have also been something else—a mechanical technician. He demonstrates how Vermeer’s paintings seem to capture light and shadows in degrees of complexity beyond what the naked eye is capable of seeing. Where Vermeer’s contemporaries painted with paint, it seemed as if Vermeer “painted with light,” to Jenison’s endless fascination.
With no shortage of intellectual curiosity, Jenison sets out to re-create a Vermeer painting (or “a Vermeer”) using the very technology he suspects Vermeer of getting away with. Guiding the viewer along his thesis, Jenison poses the question—is it possible that Vermeer “cheated” by using optical device technology (lens and mirrors, essentially) to create the most “real” paintings he could sans photography? What does it even mean to “cheat” at art? Was Vermeer a “true” artist or an algorithm-following, machine-tinkering engineer?
Director Teller ( “Penn & Teller Tell a Lie”) obsessively captures Jenison’s fascination with the Vermeer paintings, using cleverly segmented time-lapse footage to exhibit the painting process. The five-year process it took for Jenison to complete his re-creation of a Vermeer is condensed in a way that warrants no less appreciation than if the viewer were working alongside Jenison themselves. One part of the film shows a series of days in which Jenison works on nothing more than painting dots to texture a rug, which he captions verbally with a grimace: “dots.”
Aside from being incredibly nuanced in visual detail, Teller is also very time-conscious in his storytelling in order to highlight Jenison’s obsession with Vermeer. It’s impossible not to sit in awe and admiration of the tremendous feat Jenison sets out to accomplish, then actually accomplishes. The weight of Jenison’s time-sacrifice in re-creating a 400-year-old painting, down to crushing his own paint pigments and learning Vermeer’s native language Dutch, is not lost on the viewer.
“Tim’s Vermeer” is academic in nature, but also filled with humorous interludes from Tim as well as his friend Penn Jillette (“Penn & Teller Tell a Lie”). Jenison is likeably depicted as the genius-next-door, often struggling against and frustrated by his and others’ contributions to the Vermeer mystery. Compulsively watchable, “Tim’s Vermeer” is a splendid work done to the feel of a do-it-yourself forensic investigation.
