Vermeer

The Art of Painting -- The Artists Studio
c. 1665/66

Kunthistorich Museum, Vienna

Vermeer elevated the tradition of Dutch genre to the highest order of artistic achievement by uniting in his paintings pictorial meaning and balanced form. He completely eliminated chance, which had been until then an important characteristic of genre painting. No single element could be altered without destroying the entire concept of the composition irrevocably. The people in his pictures seem to have paused for thought in the middle of their activities, and the wealth of feeling radiating from them creates a thoroughly poetic atmosphere. Vermeer used optical aids, such as a camera obscura (aperture camera), to project the image of the room onto a flat surface a process that would explain the still-life character of the scene. In "The Artists Studio Vermeer went beyond mere genre painting to produce a rich allegory of painting in a double sense. For all the numerous allegorical tools of Baroque art, the painting still might not be convincing were it not a masterpiece of pure painting. From a darkened room, one looks past a parted curtain, past the intentionally oversized chair into the luminous studio of the artist. The rich dress of the painter seen from behind is strangely old-fashioned. His model poses with the attributes of Clio, the Muse of History: the laurel wreath, the trumpet and a book. Equally important to the allegory are the elements of a still life on the table: treatises on painting, a mask or sculpting study and a sketch book. The map of the 17 provinces of the Low Countries before their partition in 1581 is also significant. Probably the allegory, in which illusion and reality flow together, is to be understood on many different levels: the Muse of History inspires the painter and proclaims the fame of the regions painting tradition as immortalised in history. From the sale of Vermeers estate, where it was already listed as "The Art of Painting, the picture passed through the collections of Gottfried van Swieten and Count Czernin to find its place in the Picture Gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Introduction from the Kunthistorich Museum