Johannes Vermeer.. Light as a concept and practice
His paintings did not exceed thirty-seven, but Johannes Vermeer received special attention by portraying moments of calm, serenity, and simple things in the diaries of the Dutch during the seventeenth century, as if he wanted to participate in the scene and relate to it spiritually.
A basic hypothesis regarding the work of the Dutch artist (1632-1975) is represented in his use of the camera obscura, a mechanical device that appeared before the invention of photographic cameras in the nineteenth century, as he was aware of technical developments in optics, which was the focus of his interest as a Catholic who grew up in a Protestant environment What necessitated controversy over his style between one team that he considered innovative, and another that accused him of fraud.
Until the fourth of next June, a retrospective exhibition of Vermeer, which opened last Friday evening, continues at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which includes twenty-eight of his paintings, which were collected from several museums in Europe, the United States of America and Japan.
Women are present in most of the works on display, as the artist, who passed away before he was forty-three, sought to present them by doing works such as writing a speech or playing a musical instrument, in the best possible way, from an aesthetic and formal point of view.
The exhibition is the result of artistic research that will continue until 2025, when a celebration will be held on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of Vermeer’s death, in order to shed light on his paintings from a conceptual point of view, as well as his practice related to his style and his use of scientific techniques in his time.
The exhibition includes the painting “The Maid Pours Milk” that he painted in 1660, in which he deviated from what was prevalent for a long time in depicting maids in a lazy or mean form. It is displayed next to illustrations that reflect how the artist thinks and develops solutions in his work, especially with regard to composition, light and color.
The works also show the impact of his use of the dark camera also on drawing details and the distance between the elements of the work, as there are sharp lines and other things that are not clear or appear out of focus in some areas, unlike other artists who used to draw everything in the painting in focus.
