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"So perish whoever shall leap over my battlements." - Romulus 
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Jos A Bank Plus Bloggi: Blogroll Me |
Monday, July 12, 2004
Art of the Day XXVIV  The tranquil, peaceful atmosphere of "The Art of Painting" is steeped in intimacy. Its participants are so skilled in losing themselves in their professional tasks -- model and artist -- that they seemed to have become unaware of the rest of the world. The viewer is torn, simultaneously feeling guilt -- for intruding on such a private scene -- and yet also pleasure, for having been able to witness simple, masterful beauty. The perspective chosen only adds to this voyeuristic effect -- a drawn curtain, so close that it ends out of frame, as if it were your hand that pulled the cloth back, in your enchantment by the girl's serene expression and graceful stance. She is bathed in the brightest light; your eye cannot help but jump to her immediately. The artist is a contrast; he is smartly dressed but larger and stouter, his seat planted matter-of-factly on a stool, and lets his legs splay for comfort, too deeply concentrated to sacrifice function for form. He is absorbed by his model, but not because of who she is, but what she is. Even though his face cannot be seen, it's easily told that it must be a mask of concentration -- not on her, per se, but the interplay of light in her hair and garland, the crisp folds of her dress, and the glint of her earring, shadowed by the turn of her cheek. Gentle, golden light permeates the room -- an element for which Vermeer is particularly famous. The arrangement of a model before a window is often used by him, to great effect (two other of his windows are shown here and here, painted with jewel-like colours). His scenes are simple; what drama is in his paintings lies not with the subject matter, but in the way he executes their illustration. Even though this room is actually quite cluttered with things and patterns, the picture is pulled together by a muted but somehow still brilliant palette, and an amazingly clean brushstroke. Except for perhaps the model's too-round face, Vermeer has made it so that if I reached out, I really do believe that I could lay my fingers on anything in the room and feel its actual texture. The map on the back wall, for instance, has been so realistically rendered that it's almost photographic; if I put my hand on it, the visual illusion makes me believe that I am touching parchment, heavy and soft, cracked by age. I admit, I never had much of an interest in Dutch (or Flemish) art; I'm a bit ashamed to say it took a Hollywood movie, Girl with a Pearl Earring -- undoubtably Vermeer's most famous painting now -- to get me to take a closer look at his work. The flick's prettily shot, but in the end dull. Pick up the novel if you can; it's a much richer, subtler story between pages. Posted at 23:48
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