Footwarmer

 The footwarmer was a little wooden box with a receiptable filled with hot coals which was used to keep warm woman’s foot in winter time.  Footwarmers appear frequently in the work of Vermeer’s contemporaries, where they are always clearly identified and often in use, usually supporting a seated woman’s foot. However, in The Milkmaid, the footwarmer is not being used by the maid, but it is places aside in the painting.  As mentioned before, this boxes were used to provide women with warm. Nevertheless, there was even a time when footwarmers were taken to be a mousetrap. We could also add that this little box had emblematic associations with a lover’s desire for constancy and caring, idea which is reinforced in the case of The Milkmaid by the cupid images on the tiles directly behind it.

We could say that in this painting there are two main objects, the milk pitcher and the footwarmer. They seem to involve and represent opposite things. For instance, the milk pitcher represents life itself and is open to the viewer’s huminizing impulses, whereas the footwarmer is unused and without a necessary place as it is placed in the floor and turned half aside. We could add that the pitcher exists at the heart of a domesticated human world, while the little wooden box rests just outside that world’s boundaries.

[ I can not manage to add an image of the footwarmer found in The Milkmaid, so please go to that page and observe the bottom part at the righ side of maid. ]

Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

“One of the things I love about Vermeer’s women, I guess it’s what I love about his gaze, is that . . . [it's] the gaze of someone who’s inviting us to recognize that even the simplest women have an interior life.”

Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

 

Poems in Honour of Vermeer

On Woman with Balance

Here I stand, the Last Judgement hanging
over my shoulder, and Christ pointing –
“You go here.   You go there.”
The poor souls believe,
obey without question,

But notice, if you will, that I am poised
before the lighted window,
that the scales in my hand are empty –
nothing here,  nothing there –
and another kind of weighing,
Who am I? Is this who I am?

There is no answer,
never an answer.
Only the brush against the canvas,
a trying this,  a trying that
and then the reckoning.

by Mary K. Stillwell

 

On Woman Asleep

No, not asleep, but nearly so,
as close to my bed as I can get,
my body folded down
into the closest chair,
the evening stretching
before my closed eyes
like a thickly painted canvas,
playing over and over, the laughter,
the quickening light from the hearth,
the dappled corners where dark
caresses arm, leg, breast
through heavy clothing,
the music I tap my foot to
when I do not dance,
but oh, how I love to dance!
Day and night, light and shadow,
dance and rest, these are the rhythmes,
men and women, making whole.

by Mary K. Stillwell

On The Art of Painting

I rather think him an ass,
the way he’s posed me here
with these props, the trumpet stand
the laurel wreath, this book,
as though I’m looking over my own shoulder,
deep in meditation,
the way he sits all morning
on his own squares looking
and mixing, looking
and marking, looking.
“Just there,” he repeats
each time a stray thought
of moon carries me out over the water,
or scent of grass lifts me
onto the new green floor of spring.

Here it is foul, the odor of paint
and cleaner, dusty drapes,
clothing oily with use.  Yes,
I tap my foot without thinking,
drying leaves slide from my hair,
my eyes find the window,
the close bird, the sky.  Let
him have his art, his black hat,
this room, this fixed time.
Notice he keeps his back to you,
and that in holding me here
he sets me free to dream.

by Mary K. Stillwell

 

On The Little Street

I’m the one in the doorway,
to the right, and this is my favorite time
to mend, morning just greeting cobblestone,
air still chill.   Early sun calls us
all outside to wash our walks,
sweep our passageways,
stitch our seams,  to start our day
as clean and orderly as the sky,
housekeeping as necessary as vine,
tendrils threading over brick.

by Mary K. Stillwell