The mysterious Vermeer - The secret behind a 350-year-old painting | DW Documentary
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ส.ค. 2022
- What’s the significance of the discovery of a naked Cupid in a 350-year-old painting by Vermeer? After years of study, the hidden figure was revealed in the "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window" painting, housed at the Dresden Gemäldegalerie. It was a sensational find.
The film traces the many twists and turns that this picture has experienced in its history. The justification for re-exhibiting the painting in its new form is a sensation: the Cupid was apparently painted over after the artist’s death.
The enigmatic paintings of Jan Vermeer have fascinated art lovers for centuries. His oeuvre has been one of the most difficult for experts to conclusively decipher and has frequently been the subject of controversial discussions on a global level. Now, a gallery in the German city of Dresden has assembled the world’s top Vermeer aficionados, high-tech imaging techniques and plenty of cash. Why? Because what began as a regular restoration of a painting has now resulted in the radical alteration of an iconic image.
But who decides how paintings from the past should be analyzed? And how to respond to any surprising findings? This film ponders the prerogative of interpretation in art, in the past and the present. Will the revelation of Cupid finally help to uncover the enduring secrets of Vermeer?
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J. Fitzsimmons is the only commentator who mentions that this same painting of cupid appears in two other works by Vermeer. It astonished me that this documentary made no mention of this, or of the fact that Vermeer often included paintings, maps and tapestries in his backgrounds! So no surprise that the cupid was there all along. Paintings were often altered by "restorers", cut down to fit frames, or deleting unfashionable background "distractions".
DW is a competent documentary producer, but not an art history specialist. I could estimate a good handful of these, important to assist greater understanding, omissions to have occurred by the very nature of interview-only process, rather than a designed exposé.
I did notice another painting was VERY briefly shown here, 23:41 "A Young Woman Standing", featuring the cupid.
It s narrator,not commentator!Language!
And many of them do a horrendous job in their "restorations!"
@@argusfleibeit1165 It's just about the same "cupid", too, and isn't this cupid holding a playing card shown later as part of "Girl reading a letter.................."?
I just got to see a number of Vermeer paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, recently. What a joy.
I'm a big supporter of utilising science & technology to peel back the layers of time to see these masterpieces _as the artist intended._ I find it incredibly ironic when art critics & academics protest restorations like this one, because they are effectively saying "I'm not interested in what _Vermeer_ was trying to communicate with this painting... I'm only interested in what _I think_ he was trying to say based on my interpretation of another artist's alterations." I think it's an insult to the artist to put your own ego before their artistic intent... to want future generations to continue to see the version _you_ like & are comfortable with, instead of to how it looked when it left Vermeer's easel (or as close as modern sympathetic restoration allows).
Then "as intended", the painting is busy, obvious and lame.
@@uiscepreston O well, Vermeer painted it like that. Why not just copy it and alter it to your liking instead of destroying a masters artwork.
Exactly. Restoring the painting to its original form, and taking away the alterations made after the artist died by others puts it back into the condition that vemeer intended. Doesn’t matter if they don’t like it, it’s now how he painted it in the first place.
Agreed. "Removing this erasure of history is erasing history" is just gibberish.
These are irrelevant. Materials were often painted over with items bleeding through the finished art. They mean nothing
I don’t think history is being removed, it’s being returned in its original state! Love it!❤🇨🇦👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
In Delft, Holland, Nederlands. That's is where you get REAL Blue Willow dishwear. The immatation is cheaper and goes in dishwasher/mircowave. China uses the best paint. xo
I believe it is a paradox: obliteration by incorporation.
This is the kind of documentary that makes DW simply wonderful! Thank you for this journey into art and history! Beautiful. 🙂
Here, Here!
I was informed by a friend in Rotterdam that there will be a major exhibit of Vermeer's work at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam this year with 450,000 tickets ALREADY been sold. I adore his work and visited the Mauritshuis museum when visiting my friend eleven years ago... so I could see Vermeer's work, including the Girl with the Pearl Earring. This is a brilliant presentation. DW is a wonderful source of information. Thank you.
I was at that museum in Amsterdam in 2018.
What an awesome experience 🎉
Imagine how many other pieces of art there are out there that have been unnoticeably altered
Or intentionally altered. Or destroyed because someone with an Xray machine thought they knew better.
There was one where a slave was painted over. Fascinating.
A few of mine could use the help to be honest
I highly recommend the documentary "tim's vermeer." It's about how vermeer painted using a reflection off of a mirror.
And Secret Knowledge by David Hockney.
I tried the experiment with a black and white photo and it works! I painted an photo-realistic painting having never painted before. So worth trying
Of course we will never know if he did paint with mirrors or if he just had an incredible natural perception of color and light and the great talent to display that in his paintings. I thoroughly enjoyed Tim's Vermeer and thought it excellent!
I agree, can't recommend Tim's Vermeer enough.
Vermeer did sketch on the canvas beneath the painting and he changed the compositions by overpainting part. So I don't know if he really used that technique but it is a nice documentary
I was lucky enough to visit the Mauritshuis Museum to see Girl With A Pearl Earring. The painting is breathtaking and simply glows but, the museum is also beautiful. The perfect setting for a masterpiece.
Badly translated from German but I like the girl with the braids. I still have questions though, the main one being how they came to the conclusion Vermeer himself did not overpaint the Cupid
My opinion is that if he didn't over-paint the same cupid figure in the painting shown at 23:41 then why would he paint out the cupid in the other featured painting?
The Netherlands has had a long history of periodic iconoclastic movements. An ancient god in a painted image would be a logical target…
I always want to know the same and the with or without playing card complicates it further. I really prefer the painting visually without Cupid as it to “busy” with
old style color pigments use very distinctive pigments with noticeable (with modern tech) trace particles that can be determined to have come from a certain era, caused by where and when the paint was mixed and with which resources and from where. So if a dutch painter in 1650's painted this, and the covering paint dont match the underlying, they would have come from different sources.. I cant be certain thats how they did it, but thats something I have heard of being investigated with modern tech on old art. So as conservators can be certain to match the precise color if a restoration is needed.
It was reported by the experts that the age of the binding within the paint of the Cupid and the overpaint, as well as the amount of dirt trapped between the layers, revealed that decades passed between the layers. Since the painting was completed in 1657-59 and he died in 1670, it was only a matter of maths.
A wonderful documentary and discussion. My only regret is the animation of the girl, letter, and beyond the window, which represent someone other than Vermeer putting their stamp on it.
I love the curtain. It is so realistic! The glass on the window is so real, as you can see the wavy old glass in the window!!
Finally! Another classic on art history! Your art history documentaries are second to none, DW.
This documentary is excellent.
Vermeer is one of my favorites of the masters. Thank you, I learned more.❤️
The overpainting hides the work of Vermeer, ergo it hides history. Removing the overpainting must reveal history,; it can not be "tantamount to removing history." Either the translation is very poor or the speaker is conceding the painting he prefers will no longer be a Vermeer but a Vemeer-plus-one.
I had to read this 3 times to understand, but it’s 4:02am….lol. You are so RIGHT. “Tantamount to Removing history” is revealing history if there is an unknown work of art. The top painting WAS revealed & *known* while the work beneath it has never been. Hopefully that’s what you meant lol
The translation seems to be correct. The persons argued that the picture was in the overpainted state for centuries and is now lost forever (!). You can agree or not but it is a fair argument.
Think the conservation thought process has changed, now it is do not put paint on that can’t be removed and protect what the artist painted. Not change the painting
@@ktoyfl since the overpainting was not done by the artist himself, and thus the Cupid was always meant to be seen. They revealed what the artist in question painted originally. So actually your not right, nor are those who said it should have been left. Further it changes what you see, and the interpretation of the appearance of the Cupid in the background.
@ktoyfl Thats my take on it too .
Of course revealing the original is important but the trajectory of the work over centuries is also very relevant. Its a painting and a forensic journey which makes it even more factinating .
Vermeer has painted my favorite: Girl with a pearl earring. That painting has more soul than any other..
It's possible to appreciate both versions. The image always existed, just not to the visible eye. I think the discovery is positive for art appreciation and further curiosity about Vermeer's work.
I saw his art display when it came to Dublin with my art class. His work is truly phenomnal
I think having the painting come slightly to life was a wonderful touch. Well done.
I love the interviews of all these curators! They are so eloquent and bubbly - really makes the insight interesting
It's hilarious that the exact same cupid appears at 23:41 in VerMeer's painting, "A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal" but this comparison is not mentioned by any of the experts. Also, the animation is a bizarre parallel to the conservator who "improved" the original by overpainting it.
Indeed an oversight.
The experts span many disciplines and I feel more time is wrongly given to the critic and his subjective theories rather than the more pragmatic historians and archivists.
An oversight, too, to make no mention of van Meegeren whose forgeries filled the perceived absence of 'early' works.
You may be aware of the overpainted fountain in Rubens' painting of his 2nd wife in a fur coat. It illustrates, perhaps, that she posed in the open air in their garden rather than the privacy of a bedroom and therefore against later sensibilities.
There is no doubt in my mind that the restored Cupid is the correct decision. That for several hundred years viewers saw it differently has no meaning for me other than they were robbed of Vermeer's full intentions by the "improving" conservator who chose or was instructed to overpaint it.
Excellent observation! The cupids are virtually identical. If Vermeer had so few paintings, how could the experts possibly miss commenting on this? Another commenter mentions a third Vermeer with a cupid: Girl Interrupted at Her Music.
I was amazed that I had to wait until the last two minutes for them to connect the cupid to the letter, and even then they do not come out and directly say that it is a love letter, which I had been thinking as soon as the cupid was mentioned.
Also, in the last two minutes the expert refers to the "obvious symbolism" of the hidden playing card (which is not hidden in the other Vermeer painting's cupid). Well, it's not obvious to me what that symbolism is, because I am no expert. Can anyone explain the "obvious" symbolism of a playing card in cupid's hand? Is it that love strikes you randomly, like a card dealt from a deck?
@@mathematician1234 The Netherlands had a secular bourgeois class that wanted personal portraits and allegories as topics rather than biblical narratives. VerMeer made a series of allegorical paintings, and I associate these Cupid paintings with his allegorical body of work. There must have been a market for romance themed works, and Cupid would have a sort of benign association rather than "The Procuress" (Prostitution) or "Young Woman and Soldier" (Drinking and Dashing Stories Lead to Moral Downfall) allegories from the VerMeer's body of work. Also see Rembrandt and his series of portraits of Dutch militias for a similar treatment of secular demand for paintings. If you are looking for further reading, I highly recommend Simon Schama's "Embarrassment of Riches" for a great read on the Dutch golden age. Apologies for the tome.
p.s. I think Cupid's card is blank as a comment on the uncertain nature of romance.
I also found the animation odd and unnecessary - it is the interiority of the young woman that is important for me. I don’t need to see her move, and Vermeer cannot have imagined that she ever would.
My favorite Vermeer,
DW giving BBC a run for their money. Vermeer is one of my all time favourite painters
So it remains true the art critic is still the enemy of the artist. They refuse to believe something that has been proven. Rather than accept the reality they instead dig their heels in when it is revealed that Vermeer used a lens and a mirror to match pigment to light. And that is it. No special style outside of the warping of the lens. He was a master at using technology for art and all his works show it. Doesn't change the results. Just makes other people look dumb when they put their ideas on to an artist as if they knew them. Even mistaking it for a Rembrandt.
And now they cry about the painting being restored to it's original after some art critic wanted it painted over to match THEIR idea of what art is.
There is always a little dog to pull the curtain back ? hmmm...🙃
Soundtrack at 10:15 (and later) is the intro to a Brian Eno song! Hats off to DW production! A fine expression of your own "bon gout."
Yes, it's "By This River" from Before and After Science. Drove me crazy until I found it.
Background music is from one of favorite composers - Michael Nyman - as heard in various movies by Peter Greenaway, such as The Draughtsman's Contract and Zed & Two Noughts.
Yeah the localization in some DW docs has been lacking. I've noticed a number of mispronunciations as well.
The billion dollar questio is whether the painting is beautiful or the confusion it leaves in the mind of the observer. Each learned observer will have his or her version of interpretation.This only adding to the confusion already exist. Thanks DW for yet another good doc.
I think the painting looks better without the cupid. My issue is that the edge of the window and the edge of the cupid frame make a vertical line that is aesthetically unpleasant. The blank wall gives an air of minimal desolation emanating upwardly from her head. The cupid is busy. And yes, as symbolism, it is annoyingly and cloyingly obvious. We don't need to be lead by the hand by art. Restoring it, whether it was Vermeer's work or not, has destroyed the painting. Way to go, nerds. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. You'd have us all eaten by raptors because you got published.
my interpretation is vermeer painted the curtain halfway covering the cupid because the girl is still currently reading the love letter. Writing a love letter to someone and have them read it is like an "unveiling of a hidden admiration" . The curtain now makes so much sense.
Vermeer s portraits are so beautiful an realistic, he was a real master 🎨🖌️😊
yes, he is not like that big con artist Picasso!! Picasso could not even draw, without his dad. He then came up with the biggest Con in the history of the world, leave alone the art world!! In 500 years they will agree with me.
To have made the decision to remove the overpainting 30 yeara after we knew there was a cupid takes incredible guts. Of course it opens a fascinating new debate. The history of this specific work is remarkable.
The same cupid painting is seen in a other Vermeer: ‘Lady standing at a virginal’ I’m always surprised this never gets mentioned.
The statement about The Netherlands in 1632 only stresses how low mankind has fallen since then despite all the tech advancements 😔
Painting over old canvasses was, and is, a very common practice. Particularly if you are on a budget. Vermeer was the master of the Dutch school of light. Doing this to his canvas seems like sacrilege.
Overpainting simply could have been accomplished to make the painting match an interior wall for whoever owned it at the time. Alas, the cherubs willy dangle was probably the real central issue. But hey look at it this way this Vermeer painting survived, Van Gogh sent home many paintings to his mother, she promptly used the paintings to plug holes in the fence of her chicken coop. Soon with the ravages of mud, water, and chicken cursing's......... those paintings were lost forever.
DW always delivers great content.
He was the most innovative & evocative, IMO.
Thank you DW for this amazing documentary regarding art.I have fascination with old paintings especially from the renaissance period.Please keep making such documentaries regarding art.Thank you❤️.
I love the Recreation of the Painting. Wonderful idea. As the camera moves, one is never sure whether it is the painting or the recreation one is seeing - and then one might notice the letter move, or the girl blink, or birds fly past the window...
Yes... and no, it does force me to pay the attention to the painting, trying to determin what is "real" and what is added, but that particular effort is a distraction from engaging and being engaged by the picture as a whole.
ART HISTORY DOCUMENTARIES ARE MY FAVORITE!! 👍
This documentary actually this kind of documentaries which you can so excited when you watch and also it still light for your brain 🧠 so you can watch any time 🌷 thanks a lot
Narrator: "Using cutting edge technology" (1:59)
Documentary: *Shows Knife edge scraping the surface of a Vermeer painting*
😂😂👍
😂
A truly remarkable painter, one of my favorites.
mine too!!! He was a true artist unlike the Con, passing of as an artist, Picasso! Picasso could not even draw. When his dad helped him, his work was okay. But after his father was not there to help him, his subject matter was cartoonish!! Since it started to look like that at his first gallery, he decided to plot a way to disguise his inability to draw and came up with his cubes and circles...UTTER RUBBISH!!
I love the fact they were brave and brought it back to the artists vision
That doesn't make it any better. He originally painted Girl Sleeping with a dog in the doorway. Should we trash that painting to bring back Fido just because he at point intended there to be a dog?!
@@uiscepreston this is the second time you’ve been obnoxious. What part of it’s what the artist painted in the first place and was altered by others did you not get the memo on. The utter idiocy!
The painting of Cupid, the same painting also appears in another work by Vermeer, Girl Interrupted in Her Music and also found in the painting Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window until the artist decided to eliminate it. The painting is a work by Cesar van Everdingen which must have belonged to Vermeer (in the inventory of his widow's possessions in 1676 a painting of this subject is mentioned). As De Jongh has indicated, the painting of Cupid was inspired by an emblem in Otto van Veen's Amorum Emblemata, published in Antwerp in 1608 which alludes to faithful love. It seems likely that by including this painting in his composition, Vermeer alludes to a concept of love which includes fidelity. (Copied)
@J fitzsimmons "...until the artist decided to eliminate it." Do you mean it was Vermeer who over-painted the cupid? If you know this, I wonder why the conservators in this video, who should know this also, didn't say so?? I was going to ask why no one in the video mentioned dating the paint layer that was 'scraped' off the cupid. There was certainly enough technology available for them to do so. And isn't it one of the FIRST things done BEFORE 'pealing off' a paint layer???
Vermeer reused a lot of props. The rugs in this one. The lion-finialed chairs. The virginal. This was stuff he had lying around the studio/house. He could do amazing things with bits and bobs over and over again. But the cupid in this painting is contrived, foolishly oversized and stupid.
@@tr33m00nk watch again. the video absolutely tells you whether vermeer or someone else painted over the cupid.
@@lporter5408 Yeah, I know. @0:57-1:04 the narrator explicitly states that “…the cupid had been painted over by another artist after Vermeer’s death…”. I guess my ironic question was too subtle. But my other question stands - why did no one in the video mention dating the paint layer that was 'scraped' off the cupid? They seemed to be trying to make the 'presentation' compelling & 'mysterious' when all they needed to 'solve the mystery' was say "the over-painting was dated to ----". The info about the other cupids was interesting, but the 'mysterious' aspect of the presentation seemed artificial.
@@tr33m00nk I do agree with you, I hate all this hype, typical of our days where EVERYTHING has to be spectacular and shocking. In other words, cheap sensationalism.
This one should have been explained in half the time this video took. It was obviously filled in with dull extras.
Wow, this knocks me out. I wrote a paper on this painting once; she always seemed sad to me, not in love!
What was opinion that Girl seems to be sad , reading letter from who?
I like dutch paintings
Vermeer ,Rembrandt,Van Gogh
I think every person has own opinion
I agree with you - I always felt she looked pensive and slightly somber, as if her letter contained news or conversation that wasn’t cheerful or a love letter. It is such a beautiful painting and I am glad to see it fully revealed.
Oh oh oh this is so fantastic! Thank you DW for these wonderful documentaries!
I’m utterly amazed, flabbergasted, rendered speechless. I don’t know what to think.
Conservators conserve, restorers restore. But a famous painting will create hype. And in the art world hype is money
So… She’s actually reading a love letter, whilst being overlooked by Cupid 💘
Look at the expression on that cupid's face. He's not happy.
You are not erasing history!You are restoring it.
Fascinating. Great documentary
Thank you so much for this documentary. I love it.
A truly magnificent presentation!
Whenever someone mentioned Dutch painter, i immediately think Van Gogh. I can feel his pain, the desires for lights .
Brilliant and excellently presented; many thanks DW!
Wow she needs some straighteners for her hair for xmas
Excellent!
(despite Nyman's music) thank you very much for uploading it!
This is fascinatingly educational! It sparks so many avenues of exploration in history.
Thanks so much dw documentaries team. God bless you
Did they mention how the researchers determined that the artist himself didn’t just decide he didn’t like the Cupid he painted. Couldn’t he have been the one to paint over it?
The paint was too young, it originated from after Vermeers’ death.
🧠
For goodness sake you guys there should be no discussion.....the painting should be the one that left the artist's studio......that someone found out what it really was is wonderful. Vermeer was telling a story in the painting. We, the viewer should see the story as Vermeer told it. Would you want someone tinkering with Shakespeare?
Look at the painting at 23:42, "A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal." I find it very odd that no one made any comments about the cupid in this painting being the same as the one in the "Girl Reading...." Surely someone has catalogued the paintings captured inside Vermeer's own paintings, i.e., what paintings of other painters did Vermeer have in his studio as props?
Thanks DW,dope content as usual!
Well I learned a lot ..such an interesting documentary thank you so much for posting ..I liked the hidden cupid version but glad to know the cupid is there too I find him a bit large and imposing ..I do like a mystery ..hard to know really as both versions are beautiful .
You don't have to tell me that there's mystery in Vermeer. I thought the documentary was about the decision making process to expose the underlying paint and force us to rethink one of the precious few works he left. Then we had animation!
Very Interesting...Thank you for posting
How wonderful is this Programme Thank you
whoa 10:33 that background music is either the sample or based on Living Legends - Never Falling Down..... DOPE
Very interesting. THANK YOU..
Henry Purcells music is a perfect accompaniment
Amazing,even more after visiting the great exposition in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam 👌
There is no question here. If part of Vermeer's work was covered by another person, it must be uncovered. The loss would be too great if it were left as is.
Re Woman reading letter in the 1st section, love how you slipped in "View of Delft" outside the closed windows in the pan.
Thanks for the documentary, DW! Great work as usual, and a perfect start of the weekend, to start the morning watching this massive dose of Kultur.
But this is absurd. If the Cupid's hand with the card has been painted over by Vermeer when he painted the curtain, then surely it was Vermeer who painted out the Cupid.
An excellent video. Thanks!!!
I agree, sir. You could read my more extensive comment on this "destructive" restoration.
One of the best painters ever!
The best thing would've been to create a life-like digital copy of the _Girl Reading a Letter_ with the _full cupid figure_ (not the partly exposed one, as has been done) in the background, and hang it in another room, so viewers could educated themselves about how the work had looked fresh off Vermeer's hands. I strongly feel that *the painting itself* , as it'd come down to us, *should NOT have been modified!* The blank wall used to make the young lady the only claimant of our attention, the cupid (a mythical entity) destroys our total absorption in and identification with the girl (a fellow human being). Even the enigma of the nature of the letter is gone: it could've been anything from the bearer of the news of a death (in war? on a journey? by disease?); a creditor's demand for payment; an invitation to a baptism to her child's first work at school; a banal grocery list. Now, because of the cupid popping up, the letter can only be a love letter, I'd say the most obvious and least imaginative thing it could've been; although (as one of the curators says) we don't know if it's a bearer of happy tidings, say, a marriage proposal, or a sad one, like a broken engagement, it still dramatically shrinks the range of things the scribbled note in her hand could be. On principle one would be against any kind of tampering with a work of art, but here, I would submit (almost as an exception to the rule) that for once an "over-painting" had actually improved a "painting". I mourn the destruction of one of my all-time favourite piece of art by its pedantic restorers. Or is it technology glorying in its own vanity?
❤❤
I fully agree with you and I deeply resent what they have done. I am also suspicious since the filmmakers DID NOT make it clear when was overpainted, something that can be established fairly accurately with the sophisticated methods at their disposal. There is another very important point to consider: How can they be sure it was not Vermeer who overpainted the cupid? There are hundreds of paintings with overpainted details that the artist later considered irrelevant or inappropriate. With the same ridiculous criteria, restorers should be adding pieces to some mutilated paintings that we know were cut off by some idiotic owner because it did not fit in his/her room.
Well said. I totally agree with you and also feel sad at the destruction of this once mysterious painting.
Great stuff 😎
Covered to be interpreted as a Rembrandt, and that saved it as a Vermeer
Love this ! Not surprising for the time period someone painted over it
I love the music from the movie “ The piano “!!!
This is mind blowing!
Eno included in the soundtrack is extraordinary
Ive always liked Vemmer. and thought to difficult to copy. Ive done a Picasso. a Rebrant, and a Monet.
and have the
Mona Lisa started. I started that five years ago.
so nice to watch after work 😁
I prefer the painting without the Cherub, and his other paintings with the Cherub would look better without them. It was interesting to see the over paint removed, but emotional impact of the Painting was removed as well.
Well said
So what does it look like today? Was that shown in this documentary? I saw various zoom in & zoom outs, and the qupid. Not sure I saw a clear presentation of its state today. Thanks 🙏
very interesting. great animation
I'm curious why the comparison wasn't made between this painting and the other Vermeer painting shown titled 'A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal', which looks to have the exact same cupid painting hanging on the back wall in the portrait? Other than that, a very well done doc, albeit a bit drawn out.
Excellent introducing
I can’t believe for a minute that Vermeer would place that monstrosity there. It is completely out of place and disproportionate. The mystery the painting exudes would be ruined. I hope they will cover it back up.
I agree. Glad I'm not alone. The painting looks too busy now and cupid is a distracting from the main subject...the woman.
I would have loved to know the study work and tests made to identify when the overpaint occurred. As well as the materials used and the equipment. Well all the analysis that help them arrive to the conclusion to remove the over paint.
Thank you
So interesting and informative. Fascinating to see that the same cupid appears in the Young Woman Standing at a Virginal picture at 42.26. Personally, I think the Woman Reading a Letter should have been left without the cupid, it makes the small picture look cluttered. I remember being at the Frick Collection a few years ago, and I kept going back to look at the Officer and Young Girl painting...stunningly beautiful with its use of light and shadow. Wanted to take it home, but had to be content with a print! Excellent documentary and loved the animations too.
We, as humans, crave drama in art. Since caves. Can be a man hunting a cow or a couple discussing their relationship (like in Edward Hopper paintings). This picture gives us the thrill of what is happening in the girl's head. Psychological drama. Also the fruits spreaded on table gives motion. Like some furious reaction just had happened before. Amazing piece.
Thank you for this 👌👍👏
Great presentation! Just asking, though, when will those massive gilded frames be replaced? They detract from most masters' paintings. Try freezing the frame where The Girl With the Pearl Earring is on the work easel and see the face light up.
Very very interesting. DM ❤
I liked the painting better without the cherub!
But that was not what VAN MEER, the artis
t, intended.
Agree 100% It’s a lot better compositionally without the added dark element top right . The over-paint had also been done very skilfully and flawlessly (So much so I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t Vermeer himself who made the change.) terrible shame
one of the greatest painters ever, saw the miraculous in everyday , domestic moments , dead in in his forties. tragic.
very disturing background music!
thanks for your letter I hope you will fix this problem ASAP!!!