''The Lacemaker'' is a painting by the Dutch artist
Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer ( , ; see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch ...
(1632–1675), completed around 1669–1670 and held in the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
, Paris. The work shows a young woman wearing a yellow bodice, holding up a pair of bobbins in her left hand as she carefully places a pin in the pillow on which she is making her bobbin lace.
Description
At , the work is the smallest of Vermeer's paintings,Bonafoux, 66 seen by one author as one of his most abstract and unusual.Huerta (2005), 38 The
canvas
Canvas is an extremely durable Plain weave, plain-woven Cloth, fabric used for making sails, tents, Tent#Marquees and larger tents, marquees, backpacks, Shelter (building), shelters, as a Support (art), support for oil painting and for other ite ...
used was cut from the same bolt as that used for '' A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals'', and both paintings seem to have had identical dimensions originally.
The girl is set against a blank wall, probably because the artist sought to eliminate any external distractions from the central image. As with his '' The Astronomer'' (1668) and ''
The Geographer
''The Geographer'' (Dutch: ) is a painting created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in 1668–1669, and is now in the collection of the Städel museum in Frankfurt, Germany. It is closely related to Vermeer's ''The Astronomer (painting), The Ast ...
'' (1669), it is likely that the artist undertook careful study before he executed the work; the art of lacemaking is portrayed closely and accurately.Wheelock, 114 Some believe Vermeer may have used a ''
camera obscura
A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) ...
'' while composing the work: many optical effects typical of projection can be seen, in particular the blurring of the foreground. By rendering areas of the canvas as out-of-focus, Vermeer is able to suggest
depth of field
The depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and the farthest objects that are in acceptably sharp focus (optics), focus in an image captured with a camera. See also the closely related depth of focus.
Factors affecting depth ...
in a manner unusual of Dutch
Baroque painting
Baroque painting is the painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement. The movement is often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and Catholic Revival, contrasting sharply with the precision of the lace she is shown working on.
According to the art historian
Lawrence Gowing
Sir Lawrence Burnett Gowing (21 April 1918 – 5 February 1991) was an English artist, writer, curator and teacher. Initially recognised as a portrait and landscape painter, he quickly rose to prominence as an art educator, writer, and eventuall ...
,
:"The achievement of Vermeer's maturity is complete. It is not open to extension: no universal style is discovered. We have never the sense of abundance that the characteristic jewels of his century gives us, the sense that the precious vein lies open, ready to be worked. There is only one 'Lacemaker': we cannot imagine another. It is a complete and single definition."Gowing, 55
The painting is often compared to a 1662 canvas by the Dutch portrait and genre painter
Caspar Netscher
Caspar (or Gaspar) Netscher (1639 – January 15, 1684) was a Dutch portrait and genre painter. He was a master in depicting oriental rugs, silk and brocade and introduced an international style to the Northern Netherlands.
Life
According to Arn ...
, which is similarly contemplative in tone.
See also
*
List of paintings by Johannes Vermeer
The following is a list of paintings by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), a Dutch Golden Age painter. After two or three early history paintings, he concentrated almost entirely on genre works, typically interiors with one or two figures. Vermeer's ...
Notes
Sources
* Bonafoux, Pascal. ''Vermeer''. New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1992.
*Gowing, Lawrence. ''Vermeer''. University of California Press, 1950.
*Huerta, Robert D. ''Giants of Delft''. Bucknell University Press, 2003.
*Huerta, Robert D. ''Vermeer and Plato: Painting the Ideal''. Bucknell University Press, 2005.
*Wheelock, Arthur K. ''Vermeer: The Complete Works''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997.