How did the camera obscura assist some 18th-century landscape artists?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

van de Velde, Adriaen: River Landscape in the Late Afternoon — Landscape painting *River Landscape in the Late Afternoon*, oil on canvas by Adriaen van de Velde, 1663; in a private collection.

By the 18th century, the camera obscura served as a valuable tool for landscape painting and other artistic endeavors by projecting an accurate, real-time image of an exterior scene onto a surface.12

Artists utilized these devices—which ranged from darkened rooms to portable, box-like models—to capture complex visual information with precision. By positioning the device toward a subject, the artist could view the reflected image and trace its outlines directly onto drawing paper. This process provided a reliable guide for perspective and composition, though the final quality of the work remained dependent on the individual artist's technical skill, as the device itself could not permanently record the image.123