A masterpiece of Dutch painting that has become the emblem of a mass market brand, The milk girl the John Vermeer (1632-1675) is exhibited at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam since 1908. Executed around 1658, this small canvas measuring 45.5 cm in height and 41 cm on the side, is one of around forty paintings that are considered to be by Vermeer. The artist, who was rediscovered only in the 19th century, had specialized in portraits and in interior scenes which depicted moments of daily life. But he also painted some allegories and a famous landscape, the Seen from Delft, whose writer Marcel Proust extolled the merits of the ” small piece of yellow wall ».
Vermeer and optics
“This figure is the strongest of those painted by Vermeer. She has more presence than her other ladies. »
David HockneySecret knowledge: The lost techniques of the old masters, 2001
In 2000, the famous painter David Hockney took an interest in the secret knowledge of the great masters with his book (published in English in 2001 then translated into French in 2005), Secret knowledge: The lost techniques of the old masters. Fascinated by the question of perspective, the author-artist explains how Caravaggio, Velasquez and even Ingres used lenses and mirrors to create projections that helped them paint and draw. It is this famous camera obscura, the darkroom, which Vermeer, in particular, used. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), the great microscopist and lens maker, was also the artist’s neighbor and executor.
Johannes Vermeer, La Laitière, verse 1658, 45.5 × 41 cm, Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam). ©Rijksmuseum
« It is now generally accepted, explique Hockney, that Vermeer, regarding 50 years following Caravaggio, was aware of the existence of optical instruments and used them for his paintings […] Most of the evidence is in the paintings. Vermeer was fascinated by the optical effects of the lens and attempted to recreate them on his canvases. Sometimes the objects appear located in the foreground, are very large, some are slightly blurred or totally blurred. In The milk girl, for example, the basket in the foreground is slightly out of focus compared to the one hanging on the wall; a distortion that Vermeer might not have seen with the naked eye. Likewise, he mightn’t have rendered the halo effect of the brighter parts on the basket, the bread, the beer weight and the jug if he hadn’t seen it. The principle is therefore established, Vermeer used optics and his paintings demonstrate it “. Re The milk girl, Hockney points out that “ this figure is the most solid of that painted by Vermeer. She has more presence than her other ladies. Could this be explained by the fact that it was a servant? One of these trivial subjects, chosen by the first users of theoptical ».
