Vermeer and The Art of Love, Aneta Georgievska–Shine, Lund Humphries 160 pages
Johannes Vermeer (17th century Dutch artist, “fine painter”) school, lived a private and quiet life. His hometown of Delft was his only home. Very little information is available about Vermeer, except that he may have married a Catholic woman and converted to her faith. He had eleven children. For two decades, he produced two paintings per year. Vermeer died in 1897 and was almost forgotten for nearly two centuries. Vermeer’s star rose again in the second half of the nineteenth century. It hasn’t stopped growing since. Vermeer’s popularity has grown in recent years thanks to the hard work of contemporary art historians as well as the sensibility of modern viewers.
Aneta Georgievska–Shine is an impressive art historian. Arthur Wheelock, an American Vermeer scholar who was also the curator of the NGA’s landmark exhibition, taught her. Her expertise has been applied to two studies of Peter Paul Rubens’s mythological works. She now has a remarkable monograph on Vermeer art. The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam has the largest collection of Vermeer paintings this spring. GeorgievskaShine’s book, however, is an excellent guide for the works and a great alternative for those who cannot make it.
Georgievska Shine’s book is divided into two parts. The first section is a tour through Dutch genre painting during the mid-seventeenth Century. It demonstrates how this artistic culture shaped Vermeer’s subject matter, characters and situations. She convincingly argues in the second part, “Vermeer’s Difference”, that Vermeer’s visions of Dutch reality are different from those of fellow painters. His notable superiority over most Dutch painters of his day was not in technical virtuosity but in form and meaning.
One quick glance at his works will give you the impression that Vermeer was primarily an artist of genres. His main interest was domestic life and women–writing letters and knitting and other activities.
Georgievska–Shine, like other scholars of seventeenth century Dutch art, shows that Vermeer is more than just that. In Vermeer & the Art of Love, her objective is to examine Vermeer’s broad-ranging and deeply revealing artistic treatment of love–love among a woman or between God and man–along with its connections with poetry, music and, perhaps, the visual arts.
She discusses Vermeers that depict women in solitude. Sometimes they are playing or tuning a musical instrument, or reading or writing letters, possibly to or from their lover. Other times, they are in the company of a potential or actual lover. Each time, it reveals a distinct aspect of their love relationship. Vermeer’s skilled use of symbolism and form in his paintings conveys the excitement of the fulfillment of her erotic desires to come, as well as the longing for her lover when he is not there.
The seemingly ordinary Girl Reads a Letter at an Open Window does not make it clear who or what it is about. The background features a reproduction of Cupid’s painting by an unknown artist that was hung on the wall. Georgievska Shine explains that European artists rely on an iconography rooted in the ancient Greco Roman sources, especially Ovid, to invoke Cupid as a symbol of love. It is possible to speculate that the letter was written by a lover, and may even contain an ode to love. Further support for our conjecture comes from the girl’s expression and facial expressions, which are a sign of total absorption. This is a look that is hard to connect with everyday news. We are still left in the dark.
Georgievska Shine says that Vermeer’s approach to love is unique because he doesn’t believe in moralizing it. He is distinguished from other prominent Dutch artists today, such as Jan Steen who is preoccupied by eros beyond the boundaries of morality and Pieter de Hooch who portrays morally upright Eros.
Officer, Laughing Girl, are two examples. Georgievska–Shine says that the foregrounded silhouette of the soldier, with his back to the viewer, dominates the painting’s composition. It creates “an air of mystery” and we are not sure if he is a hunter, conqueror, or genuine Petrarchan courtier, seeking to seduce his beloved but failing to bind him for ever. His red coat suggests a strong erotic passion. He may be trying to charm her immediately, as evidenced by her expression of delight.
Alternately, the same map could be used as a metaphor. It might be interpreted as a “map to love,” which is a guide for the lover on his “journey into the heart of the beloved.” Vermeer has us focused on the joy he evinces in the company of his girl, leaving us to wonder what she “listens to” or “imagines” while he speaks. In Vermeer’s painting we are unaware of the possibility that her virtue might be compromised. This contrasts with Pieter de Hooch A Couple playing cards, with a Serving Woman where, Georgievska–Shine claims, all signs point to a morally questionable outcome.
Georgievska–Shine’s discussion focuses on Vermeer’s elusiveness, and secretiveness. Take a look at his use of a seemingly innocuous object, the curtain, in several paintings. The curtain at the right of the frame hides the contents of Cupid’s left hand, which is what we will return to in the Girl Reading A Letter. Some images of Cupid during Vermeer’s era, including a few engravings by Otto van Veen depict him holding a tablet with the number 1, proclaiming the mutual love of lovers. In others, however, he holds the ring, Gyges reminding us about the lover’s ability for duplicity. Cupid’s left arm is concealed behind the curtain, so we don’t know if it is holding the “magic ring of duplicity” or the “card of faithfulness”. The artist intentionally prevents us knowing the nature and morality of the relationship.
Cupid is shown holding “two masks at the feet” because, GeorgievskaShine asserts, they are intended to deceive. It is as if the artist wants to ensure that the viewer understands his message as one of devotional love. We cannot be certain, even if the love god’s left hand is hidden. Georgievska Shine then argues that Gyges’ ring might signify “the deceptiveness in images,” as Vermeer’s painting. This could also point to us as Gyges-like figures, gazing at the “beautiful illusion [of an woman]” that the painter created for us.
Allegory for the Catholic Faith shows that we see foregrounded to the left a tapestry curtains with many “largely illegible shapes” that Georgievska–Shine calls a “woven text’ that simultaneously conceals and obscures the larger picture. This curtain “hinting to the Pauline obscurity” described in 1 Corinthians 13;12 (“For now, we see in dimly, but then we will see face-to-face. Now, I understand in part. Then I will fully comprehend the whole thing as I have fully understood it.”
Georgievska–Shine is curious if the image can be understood as a metaphor for a spiritual path. She believes the image depicts Catholics living in a country in which Calvinism is the dominant religion and who have to gather for worship in “secret” locations. The hidden meanings of Allegory, as symbolized by the curtain, are confirmed by the glass orb suspended from the ceiling. This is where Georgievska–Shine says the central figure, who she describes as a fusion Mary and Mary Magdalene, is directed. The orb can be seen to reflect the entire painting, which Georgievska–Shine calls a Pauline mirror, which guides us from what is visible to the mystery of love.
It is possible to think that Vermeer’s paintings are purely naturalistic in their form. Formal elements such as color, line, texture, shading, and texture are used to create a painting that resembles everyday objects. Georgievska Shine points out that there is a strong “classicizing” tendency, which is consistent with the Renaissance. One of those classicizing features is the near-geometrical organization his paintings along clearly identifiable vertical and horizontal lines. This prefigures the geometrical abstractions of Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie. Vermeer uses classical order and form to express higher human meanings. This includes man’s love for God. It also combines with a Christianity influenced by neoplatonic Christianity. His artwork shows how harmony and classical form can “affect our soul” on an enriching level.
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The reader will be able to see how the paintings are connected to one another through detailed discussions and analyses such as these. Vermeer’s “arts of love” can be understood as a visual representation of a cosmos that is ruled by love.
Georgievska Shine’s interpretations might seem a bit ambiguous, doubtful or outlandish to some readers. However, her arguments are so well-written, precise, and refined that we must carefully reread the whole book to make sure that any doubts are not caused by misunderstandings.
Georgievska–Shine’s book reveals love’s complexity and many facets. Vermeer’s rich visual depictions emphasize the more positive aspects. Georgievska–Shine mirrors Vermeer’s artistic intent, which is in line with a more traditional, practical, and common-sense view of the subject. Contrary to contemporary tastes for debunking and a more modern, tasteful approach to debunking, Georgievska–Shine insists on the fundamental and irreducible distinction that exists between spiritual (or noble), and corporeal(or base).
