The Painting

The Art of Painting

Jan Vermeer

c. 1666-73; Oil on canvas, 130 x 110 cm

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Technique in ‘The Art of Painting’

   As Vermeer left behind no drawings or preliminary studies, our information about his artistic process can only be gleaned from the paintings themselves. In this regard, The Art of Painting is particularly valuable for it depicts an artist at work. It demonstrates that an artist sat rather than stood at his easel, and also shows that he used his mahlstick to steady his hand while painting. Having already covered his canvas with a light gray ground and indicated his composition with white lines, the artist applies flat, unmodulated strokes of color as the underlying tones. At a later stage a variety of glazes and small highlights would model the form.

   Technical examinations of Vermeer’s paintings have shown that he often followed this procedure. Sometimes it appears that he changed his mind during the painting process and made adjustments even after he had blocked in compositional elements. Nevertheless, in this painting not a single compositional change has been discovered, either through microscopic analysis, infrared photography, or x-radiography. Such compositional assurance seems to indicate that Vermeer had worked out his composition beforehand.

   Whether or not he was inspired by the optical and spatial effects of the camera obscura, he organized and structured his painting with careful attention to the laws of linear perspective. As seems to have been his standard process, he marked his vanishing point, just below the black finial of the pole weighting the map, with a pin. Strings would then have been attached to the pin to mark the orthogonals of the tiles and table edge. Despite these careful preparations, Vermeer adapted his perspective to enhance the dramatic impact of the scene. To emphasize the artist’s central importance within the allegory, Vermeer painted him at a disproportionately large scale: standing, the artist would tower over his model. Even though the artist’s face is not visible, the viewer senses both the forcefulness of his personality and the intensity of his gaze.

   The artist at his easel is executed with broad strokes that match the boldness of the image. The patterns of the black jacket, red hose, white boot hose, and black slippers are almost abstract in their crisp renderings of light and shadow. At the rear of the room, however, Vermeer has described forms with more attention to light and textural effects. The nuances of light falling across Clio’s hands, face, and robe convey the softness of her skin, the smoothness of the leather-bound folio she holds, and the sheen of the blue fabric. Vermeer similarly recorded the worn surface of the wall map as light models its form and reflects its aged appearance. Finally, in one of the most striking passages found in any of his works, he captured the brilliance of sunlight reflecting off the polished surface of the brass chandelier. With sure strokes that range from thick impastos of lead-tin yellow in the highlights to darker and thinner strokes of ocher in the shadows, Vermeer created the illusion of an object that seems almost tangible.

Excerpt taken from: http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/verm_5.shtm

Las Meninas and The Art of Painting, the Portraits of Two Painters

On February, 16 2003, Vermeer visited the Prado Museum, in other words, the house of his contemporary Velázquez for the first time. In fact, on May, 19 2003, Vermeer’s The Art of Painting hanged near Velázquez’s Las Meninas in the Prado Museum. In addition, they are surprisingly two similar paintings which were created very close in time.

Las Meninas (1656)

The scene takes place in the studio of Velázquez, in one of the rooms of Madrid’s Alcázar Palace. Velázquez appears in front of a big canvas portraying the King Philip IV of Spain and the Queen Mariana of Austria that are reflected on the mirror at the back. The five-year old infant Maria Margaret has entered the room to take a peep with her two ladies-in-waiting, María Agustina Sarmiento and Isabel de Velasco, and two court buffoons, María Bárbola and Nicolasito Pertusato, who is kicking a mastiff.   Behind them, the duenna de Ulloa is talking with a guardadamas and in the doorway the quartermaster Jose Nieto appears in the stairs. Velázquez is wearing court clothes and confidently holds a brush and a palette.

 The Art of Painting (1666)

The Art of Painting was preserved in Vermeer’s possession until his death. Therefore, it can be concluded that was a special painting for him. A curtain drawn to the left shows the intimate studio of the painter who concentrated is portraying a girl with a crown of laurel on her head holding a book and a trumpet. These elements were identified as symbols of fame by the seventeenth century society, and therefore the woman who is posing for Vermeer, seems to be Clio, the muse of history. The white mask that lies on the table is thought to symbolize imitation and therefore painting. The map hanging at the back of the painting and the lamp, appear to emphasize the theme of history embodied by Clio. (For further information of this painting visit Sheila Juaristi’s posts).

 The painter inside the painting

It was not until the Renaissance when important authors began to affirm their individuality and provide the works with titles. Therefore, it was quite innovative for the seventeenth century painters to include their self-portraits in their works. Nevertheless, Vermeer and Velázquez almost at the same time depicted themselves in the act of painting (painting inside the painting).

In front of a big canvas, Velázquez is looking at the visitor attentively. However, who is Velázquez looking at? At first, the visitor feels observed by the painter as he was inviting him/her to the inside of the painting. Nevertheless, the visitor soon realizes that Velázquez does not seem to have his eyes fixed on him/her, but on the subjects he is painting. Therefore,  as Manuel Durán notices the visitor appears to feel ill at ease when he/she realizes that the King and the Queen may be standing by his/her side.

 

 On the other hand, Vermeer perhaps more timid is sitting with his back to the visitor. He appears to be fully concentrated on his oeuvre and the solely attentive gaze of the visitor seems to interrupt the silence that fills the studio. Vermeer is wearing dark simple and easy to wash garments to protect the clothes from the paint.

 The Fame of the Artist

In the dark and elegant clothes of Velázquez, the characteristic red cross of Santiago remarkably catches the eye of the visitor. It has been claimed that it was painted by Philip IV himself when Velázquez was awarded the Order in 1659, three years after finishing the painting. In fact, as Jonathan Brown states the central theme of the painting appears to be “[. . .] not only an abstract claim for the nobility of painting, but also a personal claim for the nobility of Velázquez himself”.

Moreover, Vermeer’s The Art of Painting seems to raise similar themes. Vermeer alludes to the connection between history and painting. Alejandro Vergara suggests that “history inspires the artist and, furthermore, according to the prejudice prevailing in artistic circles since Antiquity, is its most important subject-matter, entitling artists to a position of prestige within society”.

 

 Thus, both Velázquez and Vermeer with two of their most appreciated and last works of Las Meninas and The Art of Painting are declaring the will of the artist to gain social recognition. Velázquez appears to be admitted in the bosom of the royal family and therefore, he is awarded nobility titles. In addition, by establishing a connection between history, fame and painting, Vermeer seems to be also praising the social recognition of painting.

References:

Durán, Manuel (Yale University) Velázquez frente a Vermmer [online]. [Accessed 31st May 2009] Available from World Wide Web: http://www.lehman.edu/ciberletras/v08/duran.html. An interesting essay which compares Velázquez’s Las Meninas with Vermeer’s The Art of Painting.  I highly recommend having a look at it.

Essential Vermeer. The Art of Painting [online]. [Accesed 31st May 2009]. Available from World Wide Web:http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/art_of_painting.html and http://www.essentialvermeer.com/cat_about/art.html

Lucas, Antonio (2003) El Prado ‘recoge’ la luz prodigiosa de Johannes Vermeer. El Mundo, 18 May 2003. [online] [Accessed 31st May 2009]. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.elmundo.es/papel/2003/02/18/cultura/1338842.html

Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid) Las Meninas. [online] [Accessed 31st May 2009]. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.museodelprado.es/index.php?id=995&no_cache=1&L=0&tx_obras[adv]=

Samaniego, F. (2003) El mito de Vermeer conmociona el Prado. El País.com.cultura, 18 February  2003. [online] [Accessed 31st May 2009]. Available from World Wide Web: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/mito/Vermeer/conmociona/Prado/elpepucul/20030218elpepicul_1/Tes

love letter story

I have written a story about the picture “The love letter”. It is about  a girl, a lover, feelings and of course a love letter:

THE LOVE LETTER

She was so nervous. Jane, her maid, had just given her a letter with a stamp that she could recognize at the moment. The letter was from her lover, Jan Stijn. She had not received one during one month and she was very concerned because he usually wrote her every week. He was in a travel to Asia, through the Maldive Islands. She knew that it was a dangerous travel because he did not know what was going to find there.

In these four weeks without any notice from him she had become absorbed in a deeply sadness that only could endure thanks to the music. Her lute was her ally and its sound helped her to disappear from the reality. Jane, her maid was the only friend she had. She helped her with everything, she was like a mother, like a mother she never had. The tuberculosis had killed her when she was very young. And her father was always very occupied with political problems. She spent her time with her lute, with Jane and also with her other passion, painting.

She usually painted when she was sad, so in this last month she had painted one of her favourite paintings. She painted it thinking on Jan, of course. One day she had a dream, a very disturbing nightmare. She dreamt that there was a very strong storm and the ship in which Jan traveled was in trouble. That day she woke up very agitated, because she had a very awful premonition. Then, she began imagine how would be the story to represent in her picture. It is a very severe storm, the sky is black and it roar like a fierce animal. Everything is darkness and solitude. The ship moves its sails like fierce claws with fighting spirit. The only person in the ship is Jan, he is brave and decisive. He knows that the only thing that motivates him to battle is his love, he has always her in mind, sometimes it seems that her face appears like a picture in the clouds, for giving him strength. So at the end, in her picture the big ship represented Jan, a brave warrior who fought for what he most wanted. And the storm represented the bad patches, the worries and the risks that everyone has to live until getting the most esteemed love.

While she painted the picture she had a lump in her stomach, she had the sensation that she was not going to see him again, the days went by and she fell more and more in a deeply melancholy. So the same day she finished the painting, she hung it in the wall, and decided not to think on it, and boost herself. She began to play the lute; she had set aside it since. The sound began to spread everywhere, the sadness that covered every corner from the house began to disappear and suddenly when this happiness had begun to flourish Jane, came into the room with the letter. She was full of euphoria; her heartbeats began to increase as her heart was going to explode. The letter was from Jan, after all this suffering, at the end, she had notices from him, but better not to celebrate anything because the letter could be for giving bad news.

She was trembling, she had almost any force to open the envelope, at the same time she was opening it, her eyes were full of tears. Tears that were flooding her mind and drowning her heart. At the time she took out the letter from the envelope and she could see the handwriting of her lover, she began to calm herself.

“ Dear Love;

Sorry for this horrible delay, I hope you will forgive me. This last month has been very hard. The heat is incredibly suffocating. Some of our men had fallen ill. Appart from that, the landscape is wonderful, I´d never seen anything similar, the blue from the sky, the color of the flowers that dress every path, the exotic animals, the lowly people  that give modesty off everywhere we go. I am sure you would enjoy it if you were here with me. Maybe someday we can come back together, we alone, you and me. But now you have only think that I am happy because I know that in spite of the distance you are also happy, our love is over everything in this world. I remember everyday each word, each look, each kiss, each feeling, each caress you have given me and it gives me hope to face up this moments I cannot be with you. I would like to tell you everything I feel but you only need to listen to your heart to know it because your heart and mine are only one.

Every moment I spend thinking of you thousands of emotions travel all around my body when you are not with me and even you aren´t,  your memory makes me amaze but anyway I prefer to excite myself with your presence and not with your memory.

You takes up my mind, you are the owner of every of my thoughts, of every of my passion moments, of every of my feelings, I would like this love lasts for the eternity, that in one million of years you and me would keep still together looking ourselves with the same love and the same tenderness we make it now. I know it could be possible because we need each one, we are accomplices, we do not need words, in fact, silence says everything.

I will fight always for our love, we will be together for our lives, we have learnt to adorate ourselves like no one ever could love. I need you because you are my Juliet, my angel, my lover, my best admirer, my inamorata, my passion…

With this letter I try to demonstrate that you are my existence and the only thing I need in this life, loving you is my present, a present that I only have.

You love,

Jan Stijn”

The letter was full of tears after she finished reading it, now she feels that she could live again, she was full of hope. Jan was alive and she was in love. It was the most incredibly love letter a woman could received. After this moment, she stood up and opened the window to breathe the warm wind that blew through it. She thought she could notice his love, this passional love. She knew that he was near, she could feel him because as Jan have said in his letter they are like one person, one heart one feeling.

Now she had forgotten every bad moment she had spent all this long month. She turned herself and looked to the painting in the wall, the stormy love, it was the name she gave to it, and laughed. Now she knew that there were not storms between their love.

A strong breeze came through the window. She noticed that it was familiar. She leant out of the window and in the long path in front of the big house, she could discern the figure of a man, as he was walking nearer, she was totally convinced. He was Jan. when he crossed the fence of the house; the dogs began to bark of happiness. She came unstuck from the window and went downstairs, crossed the corridor to the principal door and the garden with the same speed as the wind. When they were coming closer she noticed that her heart was about to explode, at the end they melted in the most fabulous embrace. Now they are only one.

The end

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/

Web Gallery of Art: Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window

Signature: Traces of signature (?).

Provenance: Acquired in 1724 by August III, elector of Saxony, together with a number of other paintings bought in Paris. The seller threw in the picture as a present, to sweeten the deal. It was then attributed to Rembrandt, and the ascription was subsequently weakened to “manner” or “school of.” In 1783, it was engraved as a work by Govaert Flinck. The name “Van der Meer from Delft” occurred for the first time in a catalog dating from 1806, to be changed back to Flinck in 1817. From 1826 to 1860, the appellation was altered to Pieter de Hooch. It is only since 1862 that the correct identification obtains. The only Dutch provenance that could possibly apply is the sale Pieter van der Lip, Amsterdam, 1712, no. 22, “A Woman Reading in a Room, by van der Meer of Delft fl 110.” Unfortunately, the text is not specific enough to distinguish it from the one at the Rijksmuseum, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.

The above underlines the difficulties inherent to the establishment of Vermeer’s catalog. Not a single work can be traced back to the painter’s studio, nor are there any letters or contracts extant. The task of attribution rests squarely upon the shoulders of the individual critic, which explains the multiplicity of divergent opinions. In this painting, a young woman stands in the center of the composition, facing in profile an open window to the left. In the foreground is a table covered with the same Oriental rug encountered in the Woman Asleep. On it is the identical Delft plate with fruit. The window reflects the girl’s features, while to the right the large green curtain forms a deceptive frame. She is precisely silhouetted against a bare wall that reflects the light and envelops her in its luminosity.

We are here confronted with one of the salient aspects of Vermeer’s sensibility and originality. It is the stillness that stands out, the inner absorption, the remoteness from the outer world. She concentrates entirely upon the letter, holding it firmly and tautly, while she absorbs its content with utmost attention.

In the technique, the artist avows again Rembrandtesque derivation. He paints in small fatty dabs to model the forms, and obtains the desired effects by means of impasto highlights opposed to the deeper tonalities – just as the master from Leyden was wont to do. The painting is relatively large, and the smallness of the figure as opposed to its surroundings stresses immateriality and depersonalization. Vermeer considerably changed the composition in the course of execution.

Much has been written about the trompe-l’oeil effect of the curtain. It is a pictorial artifice used by many other Dutch masters and in keeping with an old European tradition. Rembrandt, Gerard Dou, Nicolaes Maes, and many still-life and even landscape painters made use of such curtains as a means of simulating effects that now seem theatrical. The light background can be found in many paintings by Carel Fabritius, the Goldfinch from 1654 at the Mauritshuis in The Hague being the most famous example.

Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Kren and Daniel Marx., In Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved May 17, 2009, from http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/v/vermeer/02a/06gread.html

Symbolism in ‘The Art of Painting’

Symbolism in “The Art of Painting” according to some experts:

- The subject in the Muse of History, Clio: Evidenced by the facts that she is wearing a laurel wreath, holding a trumpet (depicting fame) and carrying a book (this book may be a book by Thucydides)

- The double headed eagle: It is the symbol of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty and former rulers of Holland, and it adorns the central golden chandelier. It may represent the Catholic faith, as Vermeer was a Catholic in a Protestant Holland. Moreover, the absense of candels on the chandelier may also represent the supression of the Catholic faith.

- The map at the back : It has a rip and it divides the Netherlands between the north and the south. This rip symbolizes the division between the Dutch Republic to the north and the Habsburg controlled provinces to the south. As said in the previous post, the map was made by Claes Jansz Visscher and it shows the earlier political division between the Union of Utretch to the north, and the colonies to the south.

- The mask: There is a mask on the table next to the artist, and it is thought to be a death mask, representing the ineffectiveness of the Habsburg monarch.

Cite the site: The Art of Painting. (2009, May 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:09, May 29, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Art_of_Painting&oldid=292918602

The Art of Painting (II)

The Art of Painting, also known as The Allegory of Painting, or Painter in his Studio, is a famous 17th century oil on canvas painting by Vermeer. Many experts in art believe that this work of art is an allegory of painting, and hence the alternate title of the painting. The Art of Painting, moreover, is the largest and more complex of all of Vermeer’s works. In it we find an intimate scene of a painter painting a female subject in his studio, by a window, with the background of a large map. This is one of Vermeer’s favourite paintings, but it is also a fine example of the optical style of painting. In the painting we find bright colours, but also the impact of light streaming through the windows on various elements of the painting. The painting has only two characters: the painter and his subject, a woman. The painter, for example, is thought to be a self-portrait of Vermeer, but the face is not visible. The map of the back is a map of the Netherlands, and is a map published by Claes Jansz Visscher in 1636.

Cite the site: The Art of Painting. (2009, May 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:24, May 28, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Art_of_Painting&oldid=292918602

Vermeer and “la joven de la perla”

This painting is signed “IVMeer” but not dated. It is unclear whether this work was commissioned, and if so, by whom. In any case, it is probably not meant as a conventional portrait.

 After the most recent restoration of the painting in 1994 the subtle colour scheme and the intimacy of the girl’s gaze on to the spectator has been greatly enhanced.

In 1937, a very similar painting, Smiling Girl, at the time also thought to be by Vermeer, was donated by Andrew W. Mellon to the National gallery of Art in Washington.

In the historical novel, written by tracy Chevalier and called Girl with a pearl Earring Johannes Vermeer becomes intimate with a servant named Griet, whom he hires as an assistant and has sit for him as a painting model while wearing one of his wife’s pearl earrings.

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

The Painting in the 20th century

In 1742 the Elector of Saxony, August III, acquired this painting, which he believed to be a Rembrandt; the previous year he had bought The Procuress. During the Second World War both pictures were among Dresden’s works of art hidden for safety and consequently spared from the British bombing. In 1945 they were seized by the Red Army as booty and secretly taken to Moscow. When the question of returning Dresden’s pictures arose, the Soviet minister of culture wanted East Germany to allow two works to remain in Russia in gratitude. His choice, a masterpiece by Giorgione (c. 1476/8-1510) and Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, is evidence of the importance of this early Vermeer. This proposal was dropped and both Vermeer’s were among the paintings returned to Dresden in 1955.

Martin Bailey, (1995) In Essential Vermeer. Retrieved April 17, 2009, from http://www.essentialvermeer.com

Understanding “A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window”

This painting is part of a group of works painted by Vermeer in the late 1650s which mark the start of his mature period. Other works of this period include Officer and Laughing Girl (New York, The Frick Collection), The Milkmaid (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), and The Glass of Wine (Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemaldegalerie). In these paintings the artist depicts the corner of a relatively large room which is lit through a window on the left side. This compositional formula is inspired by the work of Pieter de Hooch (upper right), who nonetheless differs from Vermeer in locating his figures closer to the foreground. Vermeer’s figures at this period are smaller than those in his earlier works, while his technique is more precise.

The figure in the background of this simple and ordered interior rests his head on his hand in a melancholy attitude, while in the foreground a young woman takes a wine glass which an elegantly dressed man hands to her. The young woman’s smile and the man’s attitude indicate that we are witnessing a scene of seduction, and that the girl is largely accepting her admirer’s advances.

Also starting at this period is a greater attention to the way in which light falls on the objects and different materials, highlighting the textures (second upper right). Along with the characteristically self-absorbed character of his figures, the most famous characteristic of Vermeer’s work is its lifelikeness, the result of a complex and exquisite exercise in the transformation of reality. Some aspects of this painting allow us to approximate the way in which the artist achieved these ends. The lower frame of the window, for example, directs the spectator’s gaze towards a chair which extends the gaze further so that we arrive at the strongly, illuminated letter which the young woman is holding. The reflection of the girl in the window emphasizes the importance of the letter, which becomes the psychological axis of the painting. As in other works by Vermeer, the chair acts to clarify the spatial relations between the elements in the room, in this case the table and the end wall. The open window which reflects the girl’s face projects a slight shadow on the wall, echoing its shape and also helping to define the location of the girl’s face. The angle of the fruit bowl and the girl’s forearm are parallel and thus visually related, so that we connect the golden sleeve of the girl with the large green curtain on the right. This type of formal relation between the elements in the painting defines its visual rhythms, which the spectator becomes aware of in a slow and gradual process.

We know from x-rays that initially the end wall, just above and to the right of the young woman, had a painting of Cupid (the same one that appears in A Lady Standing at the Virginals), but that Vermeer eliminated this element in the final composition. This image would have made it clear that the content of the letter which the woman is reading is of an amorous nature. In its initial form, the vanishing point of the perspective would have been in the center of the lower part of the painting of Cupid, which would therefore have been a very important element in the painting. It is revealing of Vermeer’s working method that when he removed the painting he did not alter the scene further, other than adding the curtain on the right to balance the visual weight of the other side of the composition. The ability to express the emotions of his figures in a particular situation is one of Vermeer’s most unique characteristics. In this case, his decision to remove the painting of Cupid from the end wall results in an exceptionally evocative scene; nothing distracts us from the painting’s message, which is the idea of communication with an absent loved one.

At the time when this painting was created in the late 1650s, Vermeer was in the process of changing his pictorial technique. Although in some earlier paintings we see the appearances of small dots of light, this technique, which functions to momentarily detain our gaze on specific areas of the painting, becomes ever more widespread in his work. The technique, which was possibly inspired by the images produced by an instrument known as a camera obscura and also has precedents in the work of artists such as Willem Kalf or Willem van Aelst would soon become one of Vermeer’s most distinctive characteristics.

The idea of including a curtain in the painting which seems to form part of the space occupied by the spectator has numerous precedents and became popular in Dutch art around the mid-17th century (lower right). This device was partially inspired by reality, as we know from inventories and from paintings of picture collections that some paintings, in particular the most important ones or those that depicted nudes, were covered with cloths.

There are also precedents for this in religious painting, indicating that curtains also added an effect of mystery and surprise to a scene, and contributed to its lifelikeness in that it confused the painted with the real space. The use of a cloth for illusionistic ends has an important classical precedent which Vermeer undoubtedly knew of Pliny the Elder’s anecdote in his Natural History in which he recounts that the Greek painter Zeuxis wished to prove his artistic superiority to his rival Parrhasius’ and thus painted some grapes which were so realistic that some birds attempted to peck at them. Parrhasius’ response was to paint a curtain over the picture which he did with such skill that Zeuxis tried to pull it back.

Alejandro Vergara, (2003) In Essential Vermeer. Retrieved April 17, 2009, from http://www.essentialvermeer.com

The Art of Painting

The Art of Painting has all the characteristics of Vermeer’s artistic genius, but, moreover, it stands apart from his other works. In this painting we see a seventeenth-century Dutch interior that is illuminated by diffused light and exquisitely painted details.

It is believed that this painting was really important to Vermeer, as it remained in his possession until his death. Even when the family was left in financial straits, it was not sold. After the death of the painter, his widow passed the ownership of the work to her mother, with this title work “a piece of painting by her late husband in which was depicted The Art of Painting“.  This title presents an artist depicting a woman who is dressed as Cleo, the muse of history.

The painting shows us an everyday scene that takes place in a room filled with objetcs (a map, tapestry, and a chandelier). The artist is dressed in an elegant costume and is looking carefully to his model. In her head a crown of laurel can be seen, an object that represents honour, glory, and eternal life. In her hands she is holding a trumpet and a thick book, objects which represent fame and history.

Information taken from: http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/verm_2.shtm

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

Eider Zorrilla’s page on The Milkmaid

This post contains the page developed by Eider Zorrilla for last years course on The Milkmaid.

 

“When he painted Tanneke she stood there happily pouring milk for months without a thought passing through that head, God love her.” by Tracy Chevalier.

 

Poem on The Milkmaid by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

The poem is taken from Marilyn’s ‘In Quiet Light’, which was published 8 years ago. This book is full of poems on the different Vermeer’s paintings, and this is the one on mine. It’s nice to have a look at them and see another different way of describing the works.

(As you already know, some of these poems are included in our book)

There is no flattery here: this thick-muscled,

broad-bottomed girl has milked cows at

dawn and carried sloshing pails

hung from a yoke on shoulders

broadened to the task. She kneaded

fat mounds of dough, sinking heavy fists deep

into voluptuous bread, innocent

and sensuous as a child in spring mud.

Evenings she mends and patches

the coarse wool of her bodice, smelling

her own sweat, sweet like grass and dung

in the barn or like warm milk

fresh from the udder.

 

Her world is grained and gritty, deep-

textured, rough-hewn, earth-toned, solid,

simple and crude. Reed and brass and clay,

wheat and flax and plaster turned to human use

have not come far from the loamy fields

where they were mined and gathered. The things

she handles are round and square, though-

fibered and strong, familiar as flesh to the touch.

 

The jug rests in her hand like a baby’s

bottom. She bends to her task like a mother

tending her child, hand and eye trained

to this work, heart left to its pondering.

 

How like tenderness, this look

of complete attention, how like a prayer

that blesses these loaves, this milk

(round like this belly, full like this breast),

given daily into her keeping, this handmaid

on whom the light falls,

haloed in white, hallowed by the gaze

that sees her thus, heavy, thick-lipped,

weathered and earthbound, blessed

and full of grace.

 

 

Essay for Claire on The Milkmaid

 

It was just another spring morning for her. Once again, she woke up very early in the morning and walked towards the market in order to buy the fresh milk and the fresh dough. Going to the market every morning was not an easy task for her, as she was a country girl, who had to travel to the big city and made a living. She was used to milk the cow, because she would help his father every single morning back in their farm.

 

She worked as a maid in a wealthy family and although she had been working there for some years, she still missed a lot her humble way of living. She was known around the city as the milkmaid, though her real name was Tanneke.

 

She was provided with food and clothes and had her own room in the house, that was the way in which the wealthy family payed her services at the house. That morning she was wearing the yellow long-sleeved rustic garment with blue stripes on it and the only skirt she had, which was covered with a dark blue apron. As she was still young and not married, she had to wear a white shawl covering her hair.

 

She was tired of working day after day and night after night, pleasing the others and not herself; going to the market, cooking, cleaning, washing, serving, watching after the kids … the list of the tasks never came to an end in that house. There was no time for having a rest; no time was left even to breath. However, she never showed any bad face or gesture. She tried to do her best each time. Whenever she felt exausted, instead of stopping doing things, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and kept on with her tasks.

 

 She had a dream, a dream she never shared with anybody. She kept it to herself. She had built in her mind her perfect future. She dreamt about going back home with some money in the pocket. Home, her home, her family, her whole life spent at home. Home was for her more than four walls and a bed, it was her people, the most important part of herself. Home was for her beautiful green hills, valleys, dales and pure streams and lakes. Home was for her life. It was nature in its own. Cows, highland cattle, deers, sheeps…that was home.

 

 There was no much light in that room. The sun had just start shining and illuminatin the world. Besides, the window of that room was not a clean window and so, light could hardly find its way in. Nevertheless, she had to prepare the breakfast for the Lady before she woke up. Actually, there was a little hole in one of the pieces of the window, which allowed the entramce of the light to be a bit easier. That ray directly illuminated her face, letting her see well.

 

By that time in the morning she had already gone to the market so she had already shaped the bread, cooked it in the old woodden oven and put it in different baskets. She had a look to the bread and thought it was the best bread she had ever cooked. It was perfect: not too burnt but with that tempting colour and great smell, which invited her to eat a piece. She began pouring the milk into the cup. Inspite of being tired, exausted, she poured the milk in a very careful way, as if it was the most fragile thing in the world. There was no drop of milk spread in the table; her apron was still clean, which she tried to keep that way because she had no other apron.

 

Although she was tired and bored of doing the same day after day, she tried to it the best she could. However, you could notice her sadness in her face. You could see trhough her eyes her resignation.

 

Millions of ideas would drift in her mind. She spent most of the day thinking, missing, dreaming about her home in the country. She would remember the green valleys with the seeps and the cows, the almost blue lakes surrounded by beautiful pink, yellow and white wild flowers, the singing of the birds and the fly of tens of butterflies around the trees and the grass. She remembered the pure white winters, in which almost everything was frozzen and white. Lakes and rivers were as strong as stones, with no flood of water through them. There were not wild colourful flowers at the shore of the lake, neither green grass in the slope of the hill. Those lively butterflies would have hidden in winter time, and birds would not sing as loud and happy as in summer time. She remembered the freezing cold day and nights, especially whenever she had to do any task outside the house.

 

That morning, once again, she would think about all those things, and would pour the milk just wondering herself how green valleys would be or how blue lakes and streams would be back at home. The work seemed to be easier while dreaming about being there again. Her departure was nearer than ever, though she did not know anything about it. She thought she had to spend at least a couple of years more there to be able to go back home.

 

Nevertheless, the mistress of the house did not need her services more. Tanneke had been a very good maid for many years, but was getting old. The mistress needed young maids, full of vitality. So, that same morning, after pouring the milk, putting the bread in the basket and bringing them to her mistress, she was told the great news. She was going back! Going back home! She thought full of happiness. She went downstairs jumping enthusiastically, where she packed her few things in an old bag. Her dream had made true.

 

The love letter by Aythamy

I have found this article from a web site. it talks about the meaning of the picture, The love letter.

Pulling a curtain to one side, a scene of domestic intimacy is revealed. A well-to-do woman, clothed in yellow, is being handed a letter. She glances up questioningly at her maid and pauses in her lute playing. The room with the two women is brilliantly lit; the space in front of it is darker. Sheet music can be seen on a chair. Perhaps the lady is waiting for a person with whom to play music. On the dark wall at the left of the door opening is a map. Vermeer signed the painting with his characteristic signature, compressed on the left, next to the maid, is the name ‘JVMeer’.

Although the lady has not yet opened the letter it is apparent from the picture that it is from a lover. The two pictures in the background indicate this. A painting within a painting often indicates the artist’s intention in the picture. Here the lower painting is a seascape. In the seventeenth-century language of imagery the sea stood for love, and a ship for a lover. The emblem written by Jan Krul ‘Far from home, never far from my heart’ expresses this well. The upper picture shows a man walking along a sandy path: as in the painting of the ship, there is the suggestion of a person on a journey.

The Landscape on the Wall in Vermeer

Vermeer is the most enigmatic of the painters. It is difficult to be altogether certain about his iconographic intentions, although it is evident that he had intellectually demanding programs. Little interpretative help is provided by his contemporaries. The few 17th century references to his pictures are cursory and iconographically unenlightening.

The concern here is the landscapes depicted on the walls of his paintings. In the case of The Concert, the painting we are going to concentrate on, though Goodman offers analysis on four more, it insets pictures that are integral elements of the tableaux themselves. Recent art-historical scholarship has demonstrated that the enframed figural paintings and maps placed in the paintings relate iconographically to the scenes transpiring in front of them. The landscapes hung on the walls, however, have scaped discussion, presumably because they have been seen as decorative fillers, paintings merely imitative of the style of contemporaneous pictorial landscapes, rather than as iconographically charged emblems that contribute to and expand on the meaning of the pictures. If other paintings on the wall have meaning, then why should not the landscapes?

Their symbolism becames apparent when one examines their analogues in literary landscapes, specifically some of the kind appearing in period love lyrics that were set to musical accompaniment. I believe that the meaning of the enframed lanscapes lies in what I take to be the artist`s major and “poetic” theme, the celebration of love and beauty.

Vermeer provided subtle clues to the meaning of his inset pictures by the fashionable performers with their musical instruments he placed in several of his paintings. Vermeerś landscapes are “poetic” and even “melodic”, in a very direct sense, paralleling and perhaps imitating, as they do, the natural landscapes in many contemporaneous lyrics and songs that dealt with wooing, courtship and beauty.

This fragment is taken from The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer by Elise Goodman

….Understanding The Concert

Arthur Wheelock

Jan Vermeer
1981, p. 120-121

The Concert and The Music Lesson are two paintings that point out the difficulties of interpreting precisely the meanings of Vermeer’s works. The theme of music is a frequent one in Dutch art and is generally associated with love and seduction. Paintings by Steen, Van Mieris, and Metsu often include a small statue of Cupid surmounting a door or mantelpiece as a reference to the underlying emotional context of the scene. Associations with love and seduction are also evident in the general attitudes or the figures in these paintings. The music instructor frequently appears more than professionally interested in his student and her progress as a musician.

Vermeer, however, did not provide such clear meanings for his paintings. His choices of objects offered tantalizing suggestions, but the attitudes of his figures remain surprisingly neutral. In the background on the right of The Concert, for example, hangs The Procuress by Baburen. The subject of this scene has often been thought to indicate the nature of the relationship of the three figures involved in the concert before it. These figures, however, are earnestly concentrating on their music, and do not, in themselves, reinforce the licentious nature of the scene portrayed on the wall.

If we assume that Vermeer intentionally placed The Procuress and the landscape to its left on the wall, how are we to interpret this scene? One solution could be that the figures were meant to be in contrast to the paintings rather than to represent, as it were, a tableau vivant, music was also used as a symbol for harmony and as a salve for the soul. With such an interpretation, we note also that the landscape on the clavecin is peaceful and Arcadian whereas that on the wall is rugged, in the manner of Jacob van Ruisdael. It includes a dead tree trunk, a motif Ruisdael was fond of using to indicate death and decay.

In this sense the theme of The Concert parallels that of The Music Lesson more closely than one might expect. One may rightly question the appropriateness of the title of The Music Lesson. The gentleman, who is very properly dressed, seems more intent on listening than on instructing. No written music is evident in the formal and spacious interior. As in The Concert, the theme seems to be the mollifying effects of music on the human soul. On the cover of the clavecin is written: Musica Letitiae C()[me]s Medicina Dolor[um] (Music: Companion of Joy, Balm for Sorrow). By placing the girl so that her back is to us, Vermeer effectively underplayed the importance of her personality and of any relationship between her and the man, allowing us to ponder the significance of music in our lives.

The similarities between The Concert and The Music Lesson are such that they have often been dated at the same time. Both the conception of the scene and the painting techniques of The Concert, however, place it around 1665-66, sometime after the conception of The Music Lesson. The mood of The Concert is more relaxed than that of The Music Lesson. The figures seem to belong naturally to the room and to participate in the rhythm of the music. The case in their demeanor probably resulted from Vermeer’s experiences in depicting the series of single figures during the years 1662 to 1665.

The ways in which the women’s yellow jackets are painted are also strikingly different in the two paintings. In The Music Lesson the paint is densely applied. Shadows are almost totally created by a thin glaze that covers this opaque layer. In The Concert the colors of the dress are painted more sparingly. Shadows, particularly in the skirt, are formed with the ground color rather than with glazes over opaque yellows. The effect of the painting is softer and more delicate than that of The Music Lesson.

Unfortunately, this change to a more delicate technique created serious problems of physical condition. Some paintings from the mid-1660s, including The Concert and the Woman with a Lute, have suffered from abrasion. Perhaps Vermeer recognized this potential problem, for he painted in this manner for only a short while. In his later works his style became crisper and his paint denser; he depended less extensively on glazes and transparent effects to create his images than he did in The Concert.

Source of information: http://www.essentialvermeer.com/cat_about/concert.html

The Love letter

It is a 17th century painting by Johannes Vermmer. In the painting is a servant maid that hands over a letter to a young woman with a lute. The painting is part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

The tied-up curtain in the foreground creates the impression that the viewer is looking at an intensely private, personal scene. The diagonals on the chequered floor create the impression of depth and three-dimensionality.

The fact that it is a love letter that the woman has received is made clear by the fact that she is carrying a lute (more specifically, a cittern, a member of the lute/guitar family). The lute was a symbol of love – often carnal love – in the sixteenth century. This idea is further reinforced by the slippers at the very bottom of the picture. The removed slipper was another symbol of illicit love. The floor brush would appear to represent domesticity, and its placement at the side of the painting may suggest that domestic concerns have been forgotten or pushed aside.

The two paintings on the wall are also significant. The lower painting is of a stormy sea, a clear metaphor for tempestuous love. Above it is a picture of a traveller on a sandy road. This may refer to the absence of the man who is writing to the lady.

the love letter by Aintzane Jugo

It might be the case that when somebody sees this painting cannot really tell the letter the woman in yellow is given is a love letter. However, I have found a  theory which briefly offers a very interesting and wit hint to let unexperts in art like me realise that the letter in the drawing by Vermeer is in fact a love letter. I must say that I certainly think the whole idea this theory maintains is absolutely surprising since I would never have thought a painter would pay atention to this type of details that surely enough will not be noticed by many viewers who lack the artistic knowledge this requires.  Here follows the possible explanation:

 

Although the lady has not yet opened the letter it is apparent from the picture that it is from a lover. The two pictures in the background indicate this. A painting within a painting often indicates the artist\’s intention in the picture. Here the lower painting is a seascape. In the seventeenth-century language of imagery the sea stood for love, and a ship for a lover. The emblem written by Jan Krul \’Far from home, never far from my heart\’ expresses this well. The upper picture shows a man walking along a sandy path: as in the painting of the ship, there is the suggestion of a person on a journey.