Vermeer: Inspiration for other artists

VERSION OF “THE LACEMAKER” BY ANTONIO GUMAN CAPEL

Here we can see a picture of Antonio Guzman Capel based on the picture “The Lacemaker” by Johannes Vermeer, for whom he seems to feel admiration.

You can know more of this author and his works in http://www.antoniocapel.com/

DEPICTION OF “GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING” BY SCOTT WADE

It is amazing to see how this artist is able to make of dirty cars authentic pieces of art. I really admire him. Here we can see his depiction of Vermeer’s picture:

This is the way he describes his “experience”:

Felt a little bold taking on a Vermeer (not sure why I had no qualms about Da Vinci or Van Gogh), but I couldn’t resist “Girl With A Pearl Earring.” This one was tricky. I did it over a previous drawing that had been rained on. There were places where the dust had been caked on, and it didn’t brush off evenly at all. I had to kind of stab the clods with a bristle brush to break it up enough to get some intermediate tones. That’s what gives this one a sort of stipple effect.“

In the third picture as he describes we can see “the parts that were caked on by rain, and the tones and line work look so different from the inside.”

You can know more of him and his works in http://www.dirtycarart.com/

Understanding “Girl interrupted at her music”

Most Dutch genre painters favored scenes which included some specific action. In Jan Steen’s Music Master of about 1659 or Frans van Mieris’s The Duet of 1658, for example, figures are engrossed in each other and in the making of music. In each instance a young attendant enters the room, adding to the level of activity. Vermeer, in a number of paintings from the end of the 1650s, sought to achieve similar effects in his multifigured genre paintings. His results, however, were mixed at best. In Officer and Laughing Girl, The Glass of Wine, and The Girl with the Wineglass, his attempts at rendering an action, whether it be laughing, drinking, or smiling, resulted in rather forced and artificial poses.

In the Girl Interrupted at Her Music Vermeer arrived at a solution for this problem: the momentary interruption. This device allowed him to suggest movement without the need for specific gestures and facial expressions that conflicted with the essential stillness of his compositions. In this painting the gentleman and the girl make a compact group as his form gently enfolds hers. She, however, rather than concentrating on the music they hold, looks out at the viewer. Her expression is alert and expectant, but not forced. Light falls gently across her face and on her white headpiece, accenting her gaze.

Vermeer may have used this pose to emphasize the meaning of his painting. Music is often associated with love, an association that is reinforced in this instance by the painting on the back wall. This painting, perhaps by Caesar van Everdingen, also appears in A Lady Standing at the Virginals, and was initially included in Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. Its depiction of a cupid holding a card marked with a figure I is based on an emblem from Otto van Veen’s Amorum Emblemata, 1608. The emblem’s motto, “Perfectus Amor est nisi ad unum,” states that perfect love is but for one lover. The woman’s gaze out of the picture may thus have been intended to reinforce a didactic message. Interestingly, in A Lady Standing at the Virginals, the woman also looks out of the painting toward the viewer.

Unfortunately, this painting is in very bad condition. Only the still-life area preserves something of its original surface qualities. The birdhouse on the side wall is an addition painted later by someone else and was not part of Vermeer’s design.

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Essential Vermeer page: ....Understanding “Girl Interrupted in her Music “.
Extract of the book “Jan Vermeer”, by Arthur Wheelock. 1981 p.98. Access: 23 rd April 2009.
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/cat_about/interrupted.html#top

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Poetry: Girl interrupted at her music

When her mother entered the room, he did not

look up. The young girl’s pale skin turned

white as the shawl she wore. He was pointing

to a figuration of counterpoint, or so

he said. But there was something in the room

of the body giving off light, light was moving

toward the window instead of from its source.

And though his hand still clutched the back

of her chair, the mandolin was covered by sheets

of music, the glass of wine had not been

touched. Though the air in the room seemed

lighter by the old woman’s leaving, nothing

so heavy as speech would be uttered between them,

for there were still lessons to be learned,

what was to be played would soon be played out.

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Ira Sadoff. Vermeer: Girl Interrupted at her music in “The Virginia Quarterly Review”. Volume 52,  number 1. Pages:112-113 (Section “Poetry”). Access: 23 rd April  2009.
http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1976/winter/sadoff-vermeer-girl-interrupted/

Vermeer’s life

1632 Johannes Vermeer born in Delft, to Reynier Vermeer, a silk weaver, art dealer and owner of a small inn.

1641 Reynier Vermeer purchases the “Mechelen”, a large inn on the market square in Delft.

Late in the 1640‘s Vermeer must have begun his apprenticeship since it took an aspiring artist six years of training before becoming a master.

1652 Vermeer’s father dies and he almost certainly inherits the business.

1653 In Dec, Vermeer married Catherina Bolnes, daughter of Maria Thins and registered as a master painter in the St. Luke’s Guild.

1662 Vermeer elected headman of the Board of the St. Lukes Guild, a trade association of artists.

1670 Again elected headman of the Board of the St. Lukes Guild, a trade association of artists.

1672 Vermeer moved his family to Maria Thins’ house on the Oude Langendijk when the art market collapsed after France invaded the Netherlands. Vermeer’s fortune deteriorated very quickly.

1675 Vermeer died and left his wife and eleven children with enormous debts.

1676 Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), the microscopist, was named executor for the Vermeer estate.

1677 Sale of Vermeer’s paintings to help satisfy the demands of creditors.

1800‘s Vermeer is “rediscovered” by Joseph Thore. Thore traveled across Europe to find all of Vermeer’s works and his enthusiastic accounts brought Vermeer’s name to the public for the first time.

Vermeer. The complete works. Access: 21 st April 2009.
http://www.mystudios.com/vermeer/vermeer-bio.html

“Girl, interrupted”, an inspiration of a picture of Vermeer

Girl Interrupted at her Music is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It was painted in the baroque style between the years 1660 and 1661, using oil on canvas.

The painting was the inspiration for the title of Susanna Kaysen’s memoir about her stay at McLean Hospital for psychiatric treatment, Girl, Interrupted. Girl Interrupted at her Music was an integral part of Kaysen’s mental recovery and understanding. The memoir was adapted into an Academy Award winning film by the same title, starring Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder.

Girl interrupted at her music.  Access: 21 st April 2009.
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/girl_interrupted_at_her_music
(In the wikipedia page, appears the same text at the date of the access)

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Related to this, I put an extract here of  “Review of Girl, Interrupted“ by Dan Schneider, 4/30/05 :

“The end of the book is particularly strong, and probably the best pure writing in the book. After telling us where the memoir title comes from- Vermeer’s painting Girl Interrupted At Her Music, SK ends the memoir this way:

…And the wall is made of light- that entirely credible yet unreal Vermeer light.
Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful, we wish our clothes could glisten and ripple against our skins, most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them, as are the maid with the letter and the soldier with the hat.
The girl at her music sits in another sort of light, the fitful, overcast light of life, by which we see ourselves and others only imperfectly, and seldom.”

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To read more, you can check the following pages:

- “Girl, Interrupted: The Book and the Film” Article by Sussana Kaysen. April 2000. American Psychiatric Association.

- Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted. A Comparison of the James Mangold Film and the Book. Article of Leslie Halpern. Dec 15, 2008.

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GIRL INTERRUPTED AT HER MUSIC

c. 1658-1661

Oil on canvas. 15 1/2 x 17 1/2 in. (39.3 x 44.4 cm.)

The Frick Collection, New York

Girl interrupted at her music

“The girl has been distracted and turns to look with a slightly quizzical expression.One wonders what has caused the interruption and why is has not yet disturbed her companion. She and the man are holding a sheet of paper, presumably a letter or a sheet of music. Once again, Vermeer presents an enigmatic scene leaving it ambiguous whether the man is the girl’s teacher or lover. The viewer is offered a privileged moment to look into the girl’s eyes, just before her companion turns to see who has entered the room. Music was often associated with love, and lying on the table are a cittern and an open music score, together with a blue and white Delftware pitcher and a single glass of red wine. On the rear wall is a full-length painting of Cupid, which is probably intended as a reminder that perfect love should be reserved for a single lover. The paint surface of ‘Girl Interrupted at her Music’ is in worn condition and the birdcage hanging on the wall near the window may be a later addition by another artist.” Vermeer, Martin Bailey, 1995

INFORMATION TAKEN FROM THE ESSENTIAL VERMEER PAGE

Vermeer in Stamps

In the following links we can find a little more about Vermeer’s life, as well as some of his most famous paintings reproduced in stamps in different parts of the world:

1. Johannes Vermeer. Access: 22 nd February 2009
   http://arthistory.heindorffhus.dk/frame-Vermeer.htm
2. Victor Manta . Vermeer, The master of Light. 17th September 2003.  Access: 22 nd February 2009
   http://www.artonstamps.org/Art-Gallery/Vermeer/vermeer.htm