Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window – Poem

Afternoon light falls

on ochres and reds and pale golds.

Velvets and linens and wools

sway heavily in the light

breeze that passes through

this bower of abundance.

The letter she holds has been read before.

Pulling taut the wrinkled sheet she reads

again what she could now recite.

The word on which her gaze falls so intently

reach from the page like a familiar touch,

tender and faint as the delicate script

bleached by the light of this autumn afternoon.

Perhaps it is from an absent husband, running

the trade that brought these rugs a thousand miles,

and bought this fruit, best of harvest, for her table.

Perhaps not. It may be she who has gone away.

Given in marriage beyond what she knew to hope for,

taken from the sound of known feet on the village path,

from a circle of friends gathered to gossip

at the brookside after the day’s tasks,

from the mother who writes her now, wondering

whether, in her grand house, among her servants

and soft garments, she still cares for news from home.

Not even her mother knows how much

she cares: how she is glad that the old, blind cobbler’s

young apprentice is kind to him, and repairs

without a word the vagrant stitches on sole and tongue,

and calls him father; that her sister is learning

to weave and has taken her place reading verses

after the evening meal; that the little hunchback still rides

on the peddler’s cart and laughs back

at the children who laugh at him.

The streets of this city are silent as her ear strains

for familiar sounds. No woman’s voice summons her

in this household where, as yet, there is no babe

to cry or nurse to scold. The man who adores her

knows her only as his lady.

None of them knows how she would like, some evenings,

to lay her coiffed head on a breast broader and softer than her own;

to bake, morning, in a kitchen crowded with bowls and chatter;

to strip off her fine-stitched shoes and wade in a muddy brook

in secret, skirts gathered, with a giggling friend

in the heat and falling light of the afternoon.

In Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer’s Women by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

Woman Holding a Balance

“Sus formas visuales hacen referencia al mundo mental, al interior de las personas, a la autoconciencia. Trasciende lo cotidiano, presenta una belleza absoluta. Se dice que es un pintor que detiene el tiempo, el momento, el instante congelado”.

Alejandro Vergara, jefe de Conservación de pintura flamenca y escuelas del Norte

Inspiration
Vermeer is thought to have been inspired in The Goldweigher painted by Pieter de Hooch in 1664. Nevertheless, this influence is far from being coincidental as it indicates the close relation that existed between the two painters. While De Hooch appears to be more concentrated on the geometrical and the anecdotal details, Vermeer adds spiritual and allegorical values to the scene, becoming more complex in meaning.

Woman Holding a Balance (1664)              The Goldweigher (1664)

Composition
As it can be clearly seen, the central point of the painting is occupied by the balance, as the orthogonal lines seem to meet in the balance.

The Woman
The Woman appears to be wearing delicate and elegant clothes that seem to correspond to the Dutch Haute bourgeoisie. She is wearing an open white cup which was not only ornamental but it served to protect the coiffeur when dressing. This white cup can also be seen in other paintings by Vermeer and in other paintings of the time.

The Last Judgment
The woman appears to be framed in the painting that darkly hangs behind her: The Last Judgment. It has been claimed that it corresponds to Jacob de Backer as he also painted The Last Judgment with the particularity of depicting Christ with his arms raised.

Pieter de Backer, The Last Judgment (1580)

The Balance
The woman is attentively waiting until the two scales of the balance come into balance. Nevertheless, there is nothing on the pans that is being weight. Therefore, this suggests that something more important than mere pearls is being weight.

The Mirror
The woman is looking at a mirror that hangs from the wall. Mirrors were quite recurrent in the 17th century arts. For example: Annibale Carrici’s Venus Adorned by the Graces (1590-5) and Diego Velázque’s  La Venus del Espejo (1648-51). They meant self-knowledge and truth

Themes
Since the central focus is on the balance, this painting suggests the importance of sel-temperance and balance to conduct our life. As the woman seems to be framed in the Last Judgment it can also be claimed that this painting is warning us about the ephemeral of human life and that the earthly pleasures are not important. Nevertheless, the woman’s expression of the face inspires calm and tranquility which provides us with comfort and reassurance.

References

• Essential Vermeer [online]. [Accesed 14th May 2009]. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.essentialvermeer.com/
• The National Gallery of Art, Washington. Johannes Vermeer’s Woman Holding a Balance. [online][Accesed 14th May 2009]. Available from World Wide Web:http://www.nga.gov/feature/vermeer/index.shtm
• Samaniego, F. (2003) El mito de Vermeer conmociona el Prado. El País.com.cultura, 18 February 2003. [online] Accessed 28th May 2009]. Available from World Wide Web:http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/mito/Vermeer/conmociona/Prado/elpepucul/20030218elpepicul_1/Tes

View of Delft III

Vermeer’s View of Delft and his Vision of Reality, an article by dr. Arthur K. Wheelock, jr. and Kees Kaldenbach

Another complete article about Johannes Vermeer’s painting View of Delft. This time, the text offers us also some planes of the city and of the perspective in which the painting was done.

In the words of teh authors, the aim of teh article is to examine the nature of Vermeer’s image, both to understand the manner in which he created such a naturalistic impression and how he has transformed a topographical view into one that is powerful and audacious in the way Thoré-Bürger and others have described.

References:

- Vermeer’s View of Delft and his vision of reality [online]. [17-05-09]. WWW Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kalden/verm/artibus-hist1982.htm

Characters in “The Procuress”

In this famour picture by Vermeer we can clearly distinguish four different characters. A whore, a procuress, a young man and anotherman drinking some spirits are the protagonists of the picture.

The whore is a young girl with fair features and clean clothes. She is ready to do her job with the young man in red who is touching her. She holds a glass of some spirits with which she intends to make her suitor go drunk. Whores were supposed to make their lovers go as drunk as possible at that time, and providing they got very drunk, sex was no longer an option for them. She seems to be posing very tranquil and she offers both the viewer and the young man a fair smile. She is presented as a sensitive young girl who is ready to make her job.

The young man in red is the suitor to the young whore in yellow. He is a young man -probably he is a soldier- that wants to have some sexual relationships with that girl. He is waring a red coat -maybe symbol of passion and sexual desire- and a large, black hat with which he is trying to cover the girl, as if he was willing to shelter her -probably meaning he wants to take on her in the bed. He also has his hand on her left breast, as though he was embracing her, and sexually possessing her -showing his clear intentions- at the same time.

The procuress is the woman in black. She is not easily recognised because she is not like most procuresses in other pictures. Her features are fair and she even looks like a man. She is paying heed to the economical transaction that is taking place in the picture. What is more, in early stages of the picture, she was receiving some money -this means she was more active- from the young suitor. Eventually, she is just lookign at him and making sure everything goes perfectly. However, the viewer should notice the malice in ehr eyes, meaning she is no fool and she knows how to deal with economical and sexual issues. In fact, the procuresses were frequently retired whores that had enoght money to lead their own business.

The man in black is much of a jester. He is a comical character that functions rather as the narrator of the story. As a matter of fact, he is looking at the viewer, as if he wanted to tell the story to whoever is examining it. He is aside the action and he wears black clothes so that he does not attract too much attention to himself. Many critics agree nowadays that he is a self-portrait of the very Vermeer. Actually, it was very common to find the painters of those “brothels” in their own pictures. Thus, Vermeer could be but following the current fashion.

Andrei Vázquez Latorre

Bibliography:

· http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/procuress.html.

· http://www.bergerfoundation.ch/Vermeer/english/entremetteuse.html.

Objects in Vermeer’s “The Procuress”

Out of the matter of characters, the objects displayed throughout the place in the picture are also painted with mastery. The sublime and most minute details have been painted with tender and care. Thus, the effect the viewer has at first sight is that of a wonderful piece.

To begin with, the very glass the whore holds betwen her fingers is a finest representation on a “römer” glass, meant for iddle hands, this is, it is wider than normal glasses so that the cup does not slip out of the fingers. Secondly, the glass the man in black holds is very typical in 17th century paintings, and its details have been kept with tender mastery. Even the spirits within the glasses seem to have a social meaning. Usually, brothel wine was corrupted or adulterated candy syrup. On the other hand, beer was also a popular drink. The jester -the man in black- is probably drinking beer, as it is no clear what the young whore is having -or offering to her suitor.

Thirdly, the viewer is given a sight of a cittern, which the jester is holding in his arms. The cittern is not an alien instrument to Vermeer’s time’s pictures, in fact, it is a very common musical instrument which even Vermeer used quite a few times. The cittern represents sexual desire, and so it has been depicted so many times in order to give more strengh to that idea of sex in many similar pictures.

Moreover, the viewer can find a big carpet that covers almost half the picture. This carpet represent a growing fashion in the 16th and 17th centuries of having those objects from Oriental lands that people used as ornamental tools. The carpet in the picture is drawn and painted with much care and has a magnificent look. The black coat from the jester covers part of the carpet to contrast its effect, for the carpet is very large and draws too much attention. The dark coat’s aim is to oppose the aesthetic and attractive strengh of the carpet and make the main attraction focus on the young couple. This coat has been added in a later stage of the painting.

Last but not least, the jug is presented also with a superb look. It is a fine piece of art in a lrger piece of art. The precision of the painting is astonishing and in no other Vermeer paiting could any find another object or piece of decoration as fine and detailed as the one presented in The Procuress.

Andrei Vzquez Latorre

Bibliography:

· http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/procuress.html.

· http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404706599.html.

“The Procuress” in Vermeer’s career and in its time

The Procuress is one of the three pictures that have a concrete date in Vermeer’s career as a painter. This information is given by the very painter on the low bottom of the picture: “i v Meer 1656″ -”ivM” in ligature. This makes the picture not only one of the most popular pictures by Vermeer which usually leads and represents his early stage, but also one of the pictures that can be taken to draw the line of evolution of Vermeer’s painting skills.

Another important aspect Vermeer took into account when painting is the topic and the implications of painting a “brothel”. Brothel painters usually included a self-portrait in the pictures and Vermeer, as critics say nowadays, is no exception. He is supposed to have painted himself in the skin of the jester, the man in black in the left side of the picture. Nevertheless, he has also included original elements in his picture. First of all, the very procuress is very different from the usual style of depicting them. They tend to be very old and decrepit, full of wrinkles and they are often much worried of the economic transaction. They also tend to show very rude manners and strict behaviour. On the other hand, Vermeer’s procuress is much calmer and seems relatively kind. Besides, she looks quite pretty. It is widely known that procuresses were very aware of the power of money and sex, and they were very sly. This is somehting that Vermeer has depicted fairly well, for the procuress in his paiting seems to be a sly, cunning woman.

Moreover, the very whore too seems to have something different and original in herself. Whores used to be very sensual, with exotic and erotic elements that dressed them superb, like that of Gerrit van Honthorst, though the one in Vermeer’s work is not so much of an exotic woman with big breasts. She wears a yellow dress with no neckline. She also has this white cap with delicate details. She is no common whore for a brothel picture.

On the other hand, The Procuress is a painting that marks the beginning of Vermeer’s true and best carrer. Later works are examples of his mastery over light and shadow. In The Procuress, Vermeer experiments with the chiaroscuro effect, as can be seen in below in the very picture. Also, although the warm colors used, which remind the viewer of Rembrandt and his followers -1650s-, and even maybe Maes, the picture, due to its topic and structure, is considered as a piece of the Utrecht Caravaggists. The resemblance between those -frequent in the 1620s- and The Procuress is clear, though the influence of Rembrendt is also clear.

Andrei Vázquez Latorre

Bibliography

· http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/v/vermeer/01-early/04procu.html.

· http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Vermeer_Delft/8.R.htm.

· http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/procuress.html.

· http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404706599.html.

View of Delft II

Some landscapes in art

I have found a blog in the Internet that is about landscapes in art. It is a colection of articles about different paintings in which landscapes are depicted. I have linked this post with the article about View of Delft. In it, we find a reflection about some points of the painting by Vermeer. The writer talks about painting techniques shown in the picture, and analyzes the painting’s history and impact.

There are also some quotations of books and other writers.

References:

- Some landscapes: View of Delft [online] [17-05-09] WWW Page: http://some-landscapes.blogspot.com/2009/02/view-of-delft.html

View of Delft I

View of Delft, by Johannes Vermeer, a guided art history tour through this painting

This is a webpage full of detailed information about the paint of Vermeer. I use it in my presentation of the picture. In the web, you can fine information about the way the painting is done and information about how Delft is depicted in the picture. There is also information about what has changed in the city. And there are link through the text that link you to more details, that will appear at the top of the text.

There are also references to other paint by Vermeer and to other analysis and interesting webpages of View of Delft. You can also email the author of the analysis.

References:

- The ‘View of Delft’ by Johannes Vermeer, a guided art history tour through this painting [online] [17-05-09] WWW Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kalden/verm/view/Vermeer_main.html

The Appreciation of Vermeer in the twentieth-Century America

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Marguerite Glass do close the edition of the Cambridge Companion to Vermeer telling the readers about the influence of Vermeer throughout the time within an American context.

Should anyone have ever questioned that Johannes Vermeer is an artist of international repute, as beloved in the United States as he is in The Netherlands or France, one only needed to have been in Washington, D.C., during the winter of 1995-6 to have witnessed the extraordinary response to the Vermeer exhibition when it was shown at the National Gallery of Art.

What happened during the course of the 20th century to place Vermeer at the center of such a cultural phenomenon?

The fact that he died penniless in 1675 seems to have been less his own fault than the collapse of the art market that ensued after the invasion of The Netherlands by the troops of Louis XIV in 1672. Finally, his quiet, intimate scenes of domestic life are unremarkable is subject matter. hardly the type of image that would seem to excite a late-twentieth-century society that all too often seems to crave the new, the exotic and the unusual.

So, why did people stand in line in the snow and ice for hours outside the National Gallery to have an opportunity to see this small group of masterpieces? There were a lot of reasons, to be sure.

I, too, was first attracted by Vermeer’s work because of his perfect composition and the harmony oh his colors. But as I grew older and matured, I began to sense that his work could help me understand my life experience.

Vermeer’s images are so distinctive that once seen, they are never forgotten. With knowing one, there is this powerful urge to see another, and yet another, for one can never tire of the beauty of his light and color, or the sense of peace that his works bring.

And how is that Vermeer’s genius has entered into the mainstream of cultural life?Certainly, color reproductions of his paintings have brought them to a wide public and have helped make Vermeer’s art known to many who have never actually stood in front of one of his works.

The availability of reproductions, however, is only part of the answer for his broad appreciation of Vermeer in America at the end of the 2oth century.

The discovery of Vermeer’s unique qualities as an artist coincided in America with what Anette Scott has defined as a “Holland Mania”.

They suggest not only how directly Vermeer’s paintings spoke to this generation of art lovers but also how his works fascinated viewers because they could not be precisely defined and described. Most important, these writers recognized Vermeer genius lay in his ability to fuse the specifics of Dutch realism with the universal and the spiritual.

The situation, however, was rapidly changing, at least on th East Coast where a number of Vermeer’s rare paintings began to enter the American collections.

The period of the Holland Mania coincided with the rise of an extraordinary breed of American collectors intent upon enriching their lives with masterpieces of European art. The Concert at Fenway Court, Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, influenced a number of Boston painters.

“A Study of Vermeer” by Edward Snow

The following web page: http://vermeer0708.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/images.jpeg is a very good link to the Dutch painter.

Edward Snow makes a detailed study on the paintings by Johannes Vermeer, providing us with excellent pieces of information and interesting interpretations focused on art and sexuality. In pages 91 and 92 we can find the so-called chapter “The enigma on the image“,which will change our feelings about the picture giving as the opportunity to think, imagine and acquire a new point of view when looking at The Concert.

Actually the scene of the trio around the piano hides a high sense of eroticism and mystery.

vermeer’s legacy to Delft

Johannes Vermeer is one of the best known artists from the Dutch Golden Age. His name is inextricably linked with Delft, the city in which he was born in 1632 and where he lived and worked all his life. His paintings found their way all over the world; only seven of his works still remain in Dutch museums.

Famed for his mastery of light, there is more to Vermeer than meets the eye. As a true Delftenaar he made full use of the technology available to him in the form of the camera obscura or so called ‘goggle box’. Fellow Delftenaar Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was a friend of Vermeer’s and had a very large influence on him through his knowledge on lenses and their use in this technique. Through the eyes of Vermeer it can be seen an interesting and beautiful picture of the life and history of the city.

Koos de Wilt studied law and history of art. He has worked in law and publicity, and having founded several publishing companies and having written a number of books, he now makes films and publishes in newspapers and periodicals. He is currently the director of the Vermeer Centre in Delft.

resource: http://www.tudelft.nl

Vermeer in other works

In the following website [http://www.answers.com/topic/jan-vermeer?cat=entertainment] I have found a list of events to which Vermeer is related to. Besides the publication of Tracy Chevalier The Girl with a Pear Earring and the film of the same name, Vermeer seems to be related to other painters, writers, enterprises or even singers. From the list provided in the webpage I have extracted the lyrics of a song dedicated to Vermeer. It was composed by Bob Walkenhorst, the guitarist and principal songwriter for The Rainmakers. The album is called The Beginner and it was released in 2003. Here it goes:

Jan Vermeer

I wish I could dance like Jan Vermeer
He sold his soul for a bucket of light I hear
And he's drunk in Delpht, painting the town
He likes to see the world a little upside down
And he laughs at me across three hundred years
I wish I could dance like Jan Vermeer

I wish that you loved me like Jan Vermeer
Down at the Riksmuseum you were all in tears
Touched your love with a sable brush
But at the silent auction think I said too much
Put your heart on the block for the highest bidder
Sold to Jan Vermeer

I'm watching you with Jan Vermeer
I got a private eye and a dying ear
Got a camera obscura, a frosted glass
I got chiarascuro out the ass
And you're betting I'm sweating just sitting here
While you're tearing up the tapestry with Jan Vermeer

I wish I was famous like Jan Vermeer
He went from worthless to priceless in less than a year
I been from worthless to priceless and back again
I crack my back on the rack trying to stretch my skin
I think 2300's going to be my year
I'll be framed and hung like Jan Vermeer

References → http://www.answers.com/topic/jan-vermeer?cat=entertainment & http://www.sundancewebservices.net/rm/beginner.html 

The Music Lesson comes to life again

Vermeer’s paintings are full of musical instruments and people making music. In the case of The Music Lesson, the instrument is the virginal (espineta, in Spanish), an instrument greatly admired by the Dutch upper class during the mid-seventeenth century.

The music written for the virginal was measured in rhythms, and nuances of timing were carefully conceived and executed. The lyrics often accompanying the music were about human and spiritual love and about the comfort (solace) that one can obtain from it. The role the instruments played for their listeners was usually summarized in a sentence. In the case of this virginal appearing in The Music Lesson, the sentence is:

Mvsica letitiae co[me]s medicina dolor[vm] (Music: companion of joy, balm for sorrow).

The instrument on the focus of Vermeer’s painting seems to be an Antwerp, made by the famous intrument maker Andreas Rucker. This particular virginal look like one of Rocker’s best creations. These instruments were usually made for rich families to buy them in order to scale some positions in society by teaching their children how to play this virginal.

This instrument was even considered to reinforce the relations between men and women because it was an excuse for pilite contact between the sexes. Artists of the time used the concept of the music lesson to depict the sensuality as well the social acceptability of a woman playing such an instrument.

We have now the opportunity to see and listen to a different interpretation of this famous painting. The musician and music teacher Ernst Stolz has recorded Dutch and other European baroque and Renaissance music for us to listen to it. Enjoy this choice of music!!

Information from Vermeer&the Art of Painting and Youtube

“Girl with a Pearl Earring” the novel

“Girl With A Pearl Earring” is an intelligent, visually ravishing adaptation of Tracy Chevalier’s best-selling novel about the Dutch master Vermeer and the model for one of his most famous paintings. With concision and well-chosen detail, Peter Webber’s exceedingly accomplished first feature beautifully evokes the world the artist inhabited 340 years ago while deftly and discreetly delineating the personal intrigue within his teeming household. With its literary pedigree, artsy period backdrop, refined Euro air and wondrous central performance by emerging star Scarlett Johansson, who is receiving concurrent raves for her work in “Lost in Translation,” pic has all the ingredients to become an international specialized circuit hit.

Little is known about Johannes Vermeer, who lived his entire life (1632-75) in the city of Delft, and certainly nothing of the young woman who modeled for the celebrated portrait he created in about 1665. This gave U.S.-born, British-based novelist Chevalier considerable latitude in fashioning her fictional story of a teenager whose destitute Calvinist parents place her as a maid in the home of the Catholic Vermeer, a meticulous, slow-working artist who also works as an art dealer and whose home overflows with innumerable children, an overwrought wife and a queen bee-like mother-in-law.

Even before Griet (Johansson) arrives to take up her duties, one is struck by the unusual nature of the girl. Porcelain-skinned, with largish nose and lips and wide-set eyes, she seems keenly observant and self-possessed, with an intelligence and integrity that trump her illiteracy and low station. The prevailing hallmark of Johansson’s superb performance, which could be considered worthy of great silent film acting, is that her Griet is always holding something in reserve, an innate intelligence and sense of mystery that eventually intrigue Vermeer and severely threaten the latter’s wife.

Courtesy of Ben van Os’ vibrant production design, which is intersected by canals and is populated as much with livestock as it is with humanity, the thriving mercantilist Holland of the time jumps to life as Griet arrives for work. Under the thumb of fleshy housekeeper Tanneke (Joanna Scanlan) and watched with close suspicion by Vermeer’s neurotic wife Catharina (Essie Davis) and the latter’s stern mother Maria Thins (Judy Parfitt), Griet develops a fascination with the one room in the cramped house that is off-limits to the family in general, Vermeer’s spare, light-drenched studio.

While fulfilling active public and family roles, Vermeer (Colin Firth) puts his art first, often seeming remote and insisting upon privacy to work at his own deliberate pace despite domestic demands and pressure from his wealthy patron, Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson). Soon, however, he notices a nascent sensitivity in Griet to such matters as light, paint materials and composition, which earns her access to the privileged studio; before long, the artist shows her his new acquisition, a camera obscura, which he admits helps him with his work, and invites her to help him grind and mix his paints.

In such a tight household, Griet’s activities do not go unnoticed, and her position there is soon tenuous. The object of mean pranks by one of the painter’s daughters, Griet is politely courted by the nearby butcher’s son (the impossibly handsome Cillian Murphy, who looks like he just stepped out of a Zeffirelli film), just as she is lusted after by the boorish Van Ruijven, who makes a secret deal with Vermeer that looks to bode ill for Griet. 

Amidst all these swirling emotions and intrigues, a highly delicate central drama emerges: While producing a group picture for Van Ruijven, Vermeer embarks upon the secret, simultaneous project, a portrait of Griet. Posing for him in a manner that almost seems illicit, the film builds to sensual highlights that consist of a resistant Griet finally consenting to removing her white cap to reveal her resplendent hair, and Vermeer piercing her ear so she can wear the earring he insists is necessary to complete the painting.

When Catharina discovers that the servant girl has been wearing her earrings and demands to see the picture, she hysterically calls it obscene and tries to rip it to shreds. Griet’s fate hangs in the balance, but her capacity for survival proves resilient in a mixed-mood conclusion that is in proportion to the careful balance achieved throughout the picture.

Script by Olivia Hetreed jettisons the book’s first-person p.o.v., probably wisely in that the approach preserves Griet’s mysteriousness, but is quite faithful in tone and spirit. A former editor and documaker, Webber maintains an admirably restrained hold on the material while still keeping the action lively and intriguing. Drama tips into too-overt melodrama on a couple of occasions, however, notably in Van Ruijven’s one-dimensional lechery and Catharina’s  overweening jealousy.

Arching over everything is the film’s look, which in cinematographer Eduardo Serra’s exceptionally skilled hands is that of a Vermeer painting from beginning to end. The jumbled textures and colors of the home’s family quarters are set off by the austere loveliness of the artist’s soft-hued studio, which was the setting of so many of his works. Hugely evocative, the studied approach of approximating the Vermeer look, with light slanting in from the side, never feels stilted or fussy, and an emotionally climactic zoom in on Griet striking her pose for the picture, earring finally in place, is breathtaking.

While physically and dramatically credible, Firth is reserved as the guarded artist. Davis as his wife conveys the brittleness of a woman living permanently near the breaking point, and Parfitt has her moments as the matriarch who quietly sympathizes with her son-in-law more than with her daughter.

In a film of outstanding craft contributions, noteworthy are Dien van Straalen’s costumes and, particularly, Alexandre Desplat’s supple, beautifully nuanced score.

 

Vermeer’s Corner by Graham Burchell

Apart from Katharine Weber and her book, there is another writer interested in Vermeer’s paintings. This author is Graham Burchell, poet and children’s writer well-known in England. His best tale is Chester and the Green Pig. However, I want to talk you about this author because he was also touched by the enchantment Vermeer reflected on his paintings.

Quoting Burchell:

I bought a small book of Vermeer’s paintings at a bargain price. I actually started reading it, and not just looking at the pictures. I was an art teacher for many years, but I knew very little about Johannes Vermeer. Nor does anyone else it seems. I was fascinated, firstly by the enigmatic nature of the artist and his work and secondly by the stunning beauty of his paintings. Hardly anything is known about Vermeer. He has thirty-five known paintings of which one is stolen, missing from a museum in Boston. Women and more significantly, women wearing pearls is an intriguing aspect of his work that seems to be largely about the place and plight of women in 17th century Holland. I became so absorbed by the artist, his work and his time that I resolved to write a poem about each one of his paintings. In all of the poems the speaker is a character (or in some cases – the character) in the work. This was often the woman or one of the women posing. Sometimes the woman was his wife or his daughter either talking directly to the reader or to Vermeer. Occasionally the speaker is a man. In two of the poems ‘The Procuress’ and ‘The Music Lesson’, the man in question is Vermeer himself.

Vermeer is the pinter of domestic scenes, and what Burchell tries is to paly with these themes, commenting on the details of the paintings that may have served of inspiration for the painter. More than that, in Burchell’s House of Martha and Mary, inspired by Vermeer’s painting, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, the characters are aware of themselves as existing within the confines of a painting. Burchell uses to have is characters comment in an ironic way on the situation they are living inside these paintings.

These poems, like Vermeer’s paintings, seek to capture close, intimate moments in the lives of ordinary people. Burchell’s intention is to create a real world betyond those pictures, a world in which the characters involved express their own real feelings, withouth feeling obligingness for those characters who are part of a masterpiece. The characters in the paintings are aware that they are characters in a painting.

The unique poem available is the one on The Milkmaid. Although this is not the painting I’ve chosen, I think it is interesting for my classmates to read this alternative poem:

MILKMAID
The Milkmaid – c.1658 – 60I was going to do this in an accent
west country English
lots of ooz and arrz as burred
as sharp as blackberry thorns
or night cooled cider from a clay jug
all pickled pronouns and liberties
taken with doing words

dressed like a gert blue tit I be
what d’you wanna be painting I fer
down ‘ere with me serving bits
and pieces etcetera

but anyway I am Dutch and
you said you want to do me
with more dignity
there is grace in that simple
quiet act of pouring milk you said
strength in the straight white fall
and angle of my concentration

that makes me feel special
like a priest preparing communion
milk the wine
sincere food of devout thought
bread in a basket bread broken
rough-chin crusts snagging morning light
like chickens shaking rain

and you made this simple room
with its cool harvest tang
with its basket pail foot-warmer
nail-hooks and holes look special
the wall lit as a gargantuan pearl
I wrote it down somewhere yes
opalescent you called it

even painted a thin milk line
down my head and back said
it gives me monumental grandeur
said I was the embodiment
of the spiritual maid
and for all that sir
whatever it means I thank you.

 

Information taken from Got Poetry and from FourVolts Press

City of Delft

        Delft is a city located in Holand, in mid way from Rotterdam to La haya. The city had 94.098 habitants in 2005. Delft is more than 750 year old and its name comes from the word “dig”, “diging the oldest channel”, The Oude Delft.  Delft received its license of city in 1246. From then on, the city thrived and new neighbourhoods appeared.

       THE FIRES

   In 3rd of may 1536, the big fire burned out. The cause of the fire is unknown yet bit it is believed that the wooden neddle of the Nieuwe Kerk had been shaked by a flash of lighting and the spark fly set fire in the houses nearby. Aproximately, 2,300 houses were in fire until they become ashes. More than a hundred years later, in 1654, an explosion ruined a big part of the houses of the city. The basement of the Poor Clares convent on the top of Paardenmarkt was used to store gunpowder. This central store for the Dutch region contained more or less 80,000 pounds of gunpowder. The consequences of the explosion had been huge, 200 houses had been devastated, others end up semi-ruined and many others got broken windows. In 1660 a new gunpowder house was built a mile away from the center of the city.

         THE DUCTH EAST INDIA COMPANY

    The Dutch East India Company was one of the most important merchant societies of the world with a more than a hundred shiped fleet, thousands of employees, offices settled in Asia and six places in Benelux ( Belgique o Belgie, Nederland and Luxemburg) among then one being in Delft. In 1602, Delft was a flourishing city, a center of painting, arts, crafts and science. The stablishment of the company and the opening of the branch in the city, added another important motive to the economy of Delft and the trade with distant countries. Since then on, spices, coffee, te and the Chinese porcelain were connected with the city.

         KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE

        In 1842 the Benelux was under the other neighbour countries from an industrial point of view. The country required technicaly qualiphied people so the Royal Academy for Civil Ingeniering was founded. The academy used the building of the old artillery school. Nowadays, the old academy has turned to be the Technical University which is the most important building of Delft.

         Delft is not only a cultural city, but also a city of knowledge. The university is not the only building for education. There are also plenty of Institutes based on knowledges and bussiness, for instance, the DSM essencial idea, The Ducth Institute of Meassurement, Exack Software, Delft Instrument and so on.

         PEOPLE CONNECTED TO THE CITY

• The painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) was born in Delft. Vermeer made use of the streets and insides of Delft as motives or background of his paintings. His master pieces, famous worldwide, are shown in museums all over the world. Apart from the refined colours and armonious compositions, the treatement of the deepness and the play with the light is what makes the paintings of Vermeer to be so good. Vermeer worked and lived with his family in different places of the center of the town, which he used as his inspiration. Thanks to his paintings, an idea of the old Delft and also the life in Deflt at Golden Age, can be easily made.
• Delft is also the birthplace of the scientist Antoni Van Leeuwehoek (1632-1723) who polish some minuscule lens which increase the image up to 266 times, using them fro an interesting device; the microscope. Vermeer lso based on this device in his painting “The Geographer” and “The Astronomer”. Van Leeuwenhoek became the administrator of the inheritance of Vermeer after his death. 

 

 

The Music Lesson, by Katharine Weber.

As part of this subject we were asked to write a piece of literary work, finding the inspiration in the painting we have chosen. However, I think I am not able to overcome Weber’s work, a writer named by Granta to the controversial list of 50 Best Young American Novelists in 1996.

The Music Lesson was published in 1999, and up to now it has been published in eleven foreign languages (not in Spanish). In the words oh Katharine:

‘ve had in mind a story about a woman alone in a remote Irish cottage with a stolen painting since I first traveled to Ireland in 1976, on my honeymoon. In the tiny fishing village where we spent two rainy weeks, there was still much talk about the discovery and arrest, two years before, of the Anglo-Irish woman who had rented a local cottage in order to hide a cache of paintings stolen for ransom by the IRA from the Beit Collection in County Wicklow (a theft that made the Guinness Book of World Records for record value of stolen artworks at that time).

Among those paintings was a Vermeer. I remember tramping down a muddy lane in order to peer into the windows of what locals still called “the picture cottage.” At the time, I was intrigued by the notion of this woman in solitude at the edge of the sea with some of the great paintings of the world. Did she ever look at them, I wondered. What did they mean to her? The facts of the actual case have never been of enormous significance to me. Over the next twenty years, what stayed with me were those questions.

In 1986, my husband and I bought a little house in the same village — and I can see “the picture cottage” from my window. We spend time there with our two children in the summer, but I also spend several weeks alone in Ireland each year, and it is there that I have done some of my most concentrated writing, and it is there that I began to write The Music Lesson.

The story is then based on a true story happened on Friday, April 26, 1974, when a young woman knocked on the door of Russborough House in County Wicklow. Seconds later she was joined by three men brandishing revolvers, and together they stole 19 paintings from their frames. Among these pictures there were a Goya, three Rubens, two Gainsboroughs, and the jewel of them all, Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid. The total value of the haul was set in 8 million pounds.

The pintings were early restored to their original place, but his owner, Sir Alfred Beit, gave some of these masterpieces to the National Gallery of Ireland. However, this was not the unique adventure the Vermerr’s peinting had to live, because it was stolen one more time. In 1986 Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid was stolen, and it was found in September 1993 (7 years after the robbery) in the trunk of a rented car at Antwerp AirportThe travelling Vermeer was scratched and dented.

Weber’s The Music Lesson is, then, inspired by the everyday view of that cottage rented by a thief in order to hide one of the best paintings in history. she tell the reader the story of Patricia Dolan, who is alone with a stolen Vermeer painting in an Irish cottage by the sea. How she got here is part of the story she tells; about her father, a Boston cop; the numbing loss of her daughter; and her charming Irish cousin, who has led her to this high-stakes crime.

The Music Lesson has been awarded with different honors, Among them, the New York Times Book Review Notable Book, the Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year or the Chautauqua Institution Literary Circle. selection. There are favourable critiism on the book: the New York Times says of it that it is “affecting and elegant… Weber astutely explores the gap between perception and reality”.

For further information, see http://www.katharineweber.com/books/ml_about.html

To read a good piece of criticism, see The New York Times on the Web

“Vermeer’s Camera” by Philip Steadman

Vermeer’s Camera is a book by Philip Steadman, published by Oxford University Press in paperback in April 2002. It has got nine chapters and begins with an explanation of how the camera obscura works, (what would be the predecessor of the photographic camera).

Over 100 years of speculation and controversy surround claims that the great seventeenth-century Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer, used the camera obscura to create some of the most famous images in Western art.

This intellectual detective story starts by exploring Vermeer’s possible knowledge of seventeenth-century optical science, and outlines the history of this early version of the photographic camera, which projected an accurate image for artists to trace. However, it is Steadman’s meticulous reconstruction of the artist’s studio, complete with a camera obscura, which provides exciting new evidence to support the view that Vermeer did indeed use the camera.

These findings do not challenge Vermeer’s genius but show how, like many artists, he experimented with new technology to develop his style and choice of subject matter. The combination of detailed research and a wide range of contemporary illustrations offers a fascinating glimpse into a time of great scientific and cultural innovation and achievement in Europe.

• Much more information in Vermeer’s Camera, Uncovering the truth behind the masterpieces.

Albert Blankert (interview).

 

Searching on the Internet, I have found a very interesting interview to Albert Blankert. The first thing we must do, is to know who is he and what he did.

So, Albert Blankert is among the most authoritative contemporary Vermeer scholars and has written extensively both on Vermeer’s art and Dutch painting. His volume Johannes Vermeer van Delft, 1632-1675 contained a critical catalogue and an important chapter on Vermeer and His Public in which for the first time attention was drawn to a group of collectors of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries who viewed Vermeer not as much as a “sphinx” but a s a “first class painter.”

Moreover, a selection of twenty-four of Prof. Blankert’s previous articles (1967 – 2002) concerning Dutch painting from the 16th to the 18th century would be published  in February 2004 by Waanders, Zwolle. Half of them are now translated from the Dutch for the first time. The publication will have 350 pages and 350 illustrations, many of which in color. So, here I put a piece of he interview which was made the 11^th of April 2005.

 

Essential Vermeer:   Your book “Vermeer of Delft” (1975) made a fundamental step towards understanding Vermeer’s painting within a historical context. In this volume, you carefully examined the artist’s stylistic evolution, the complexities of iconographical meaning in Dutch mid-17th c. genre painting as well as Vermeer’s fame among collectors and connoisseurs during his lifetime and in the period following his death.  Since then, a vast number of publications have explored the artist’s life and work. With which results of modern scholarship do you feel most comfortable?

Albert Blankert: The idea that there would be a lot of “symbolic meaning” in Vermeer’s paintings seems to have completely lost all of its erstwhile paramount attraction. In how far have I in the past been an adherent of that idea? I would like that my own ideas have been consistent and here the changed consensus offers interesting food for thought.

Essential Vermeer: Vermeer’s works have given rise to an enormous variety of interpretations. Arthur Wheelock’s concept of Vermeer’s Neo-Platonic classicism contrasts with Walter Liedtke’s belief that the underlying sense of calm and order in the artist’s works are consequences of the local artistic traditions of Delft. For Bryan Wolf, Vermeer’s studio represents “a place where Vermeer monitors the deep inner rumblings of the psychic and aesthetic landscape…” while Mariët Westermann finds Vermeer’s interiors “expressions of the value of introspection. Lawrence Gowing asked himself if the artist was “almost an idiot… a walking retina drilled like a machine” or rather a man of “god-like detachment, more balanced, more civilized…than any other painter before or since.” Why do you think Vermeer’s paintings, seemingly so straightforward, create such diverse interpretations? And, in your opinion, are there ways to reconcile them?

Albert Blankert:   Do not we all agree on the “underlying sense of calm?” Apparently we are unable to refrain from further commenting on it, which we all do according to our own idiosyncrasies.

Essential Vermeer: In your finely articulated study of Vermeer’s pictorial themes (“Vermeer’s Modern Themes and Their Tradition” in Johannes Vermeer, 1995) you have pointed out some of the difficulties of interpreting iconographic significance in Vermeer’s painting. Some recent scholars have advanced the idea that Vermeer, as well as other Dutch genre artists may have been intentionally ambiguous in regards. What are your current feelings about Vermeer’s use of iconography?

Albert Blankert:   Vermeer most often aimed at presenting us with a straightforward ”happening” but could not avoid that these have or imply connotations and ambiguities, that he subsequently put to excellent use. You find all on that in the article “Vermeer’s Modern Themes” that you mention.

Essential Vermeer: Some scholars have recently begun to view Vermeer’s work in close association with the scientific and philosophic inquiry of his time. In particular, Robert Huerta in a recent publication * perceives this kinship, as did John Constable, who saw painters as natural philosophers attempting to discover the laws of nature and used their paintings as experiments toward this end. What do you think of this development?

Albert Blankert:   It is most intriguing that Spinoza was Vermeer’s exact contemporary and belonged (broadly defined) to the same milieu. The possible link between Vermeer’s work and the revolution in science that took place during his lifetime also is a puzzling issue. These considerations are not new and I doubt that recent speculations would offer truly new insights.

Essential Vermeer: In the Dissius auction of 1696 in which 21 painting by Vermeer were sold, one lost painting was described as “ In which a gentleman is washing his hands in a see-through room with sculptures, artful and rare.” While it is only obvious we can in no way deduce the painting’s appearance, both the “washing” theme and composition (suggested by the “see-through room”) might be related to other works by contemporaries (De Hoogh, Ter Borch and Van Hoogenstraten) and to a few of his own works (“A Maid Asleep,” “Young Woman with a Water Pitcher” and “The Love Letter”. Does the “speculative side” of Albert Blankert wish to offer any thoughts in regards, however tentative?

Albert Blankert:   Most of what I arrived at is summarized in a short paragraph in my article “Vermeer’s Modern Themes “. I often encouraged students with a talent for drawing to use it for devising a tentative reconstruction of the painting. I got images that differed a great deal from one another. None of them was in the least convincing.

Essential Vermeer: Even though modern scholarship has made great strides in defining the artist’s life and his artistic role within his contemporary cultural milieu, Thorè’s definition of the artist as “the Sphinx” still seems valid. Terms like mysterious, sublime, elevated, enigmatic are still regularly employed to describe the quality of his work. But what do these terms really mean? Why do you think otherwise reasonable commentators resort to this kind of description which has almost religious overtones?

Albert Blankert:   We appreciate, like, admire, love Vermeer’s work a very great deal. We want to express all this in words and find them insufficient, so we sing, jubilate, dance, scream, paint, drum, yes, similar to what we do for a loved one or for a god, what is the difference? Personally I find that we should observe utter restraint, but in how far is that a rational stance?

Essential Vermeer: Do you have plans for further publications about Vermeer? If so, would you be so kind as to indicate the direction your work will take?

Albert Blankert:   Yes and no.

Essential Vermeer:  Which single piece of music best puts to music Vermeer’s painting?

Albert Blankert:   Mozart and Vermeer have a lot to do with each other.

 

Women represented as pictures. (turbans, pearls…)

Vermeer has represented especially young women integrated in narrative context, even if this context is not clearly defined. The representation of the plot is suggested by an attribute, like, for example, by a music instrument. Apart from those paintings, there are some of Vermeer´s works that lack of some elements, giving the impression of being paintings. This is a reworked impression due to the fact that these women are painted in the foreground.

Nowadays, numerous paintings are intellectual activity and occupation suggesting attributes of constitutive significance and vice versa. Not all the representations that correspond to the shape of the painting have to be interpreted as a conscious and individualized characterization. Precisely, in the called “historical painting”, it is very difficult to decide if the individualized intention is prior or if the model “owns” only its exterior for another aim of representation.

 

A clear example to see and to understand all this is the painting called “The Girl with the Pearl Earring”. With a dark, neutral background, with a tendency toward the black, which makes possible a big contrastive effect, the girl side face looks toward the spectator. Her mouth is a little opened and this means that the girl, as it occurs in most of the Dutchwoman paintings, speaks to the spectator. Her head is lightly inclined, explaining the sensation that the girl is lost in her dreamful thoughts; however, at the same time, she fixes her look to the spectator.

She is wearing a brown yellowish jacket, without any applications; against we can distinguish the bright white of her neck blouse. The next contrast can be found on the blue turban she is wearing, from which extremity falls, in a veil´s shape, a yellow cloth on the shoulders. Here, Vermeer works with simple colors, nearly pure, reducing the pictorial tones.

The girl´s headdress seems exotic. Turbans were in Europe, and on the XV century, a very important and useful accessory. On the Turkish wars, the foreign way of life and the exotic cloths used to show a big fascination. In this Vermeer painting, we can say that the most important thing to remark is the big pearl earring that hangs from the girl´s ear. With its golden highlights, the pearl distinguishes among the dark area of her neck.

Apart from this painting, some similar effects happen with paintings like: “Girl´s Head”, “Girl with a flute” and “Red Hat Woman”: