Amanda Hobson 051335276
Discuss the Presentation of Women in the Work of Vermeer
Overlooked for centuries, Johannes Vermeer (or Jan van der Meer) of Delft is regarded as one of the most famous Master painters to emerge from the Dutch Golden Age. Somewhat unheard of in his life it is said he was barely mentioned in print three times, although he was elected head of Saint Luke's Guilde, a trade association for painters four times. During the 17th century the painting of pictures was not considered an art, but simply a form of craftsmanship; a way to earn a living. Despite the fact that it is now widely acclaimed, no record exists that he ever sold any of his paintings throughout his lifetime. His work, comparable to other Dutch painters such as Rembrandt, relies largely upon the use of light and reflections to set mood and to animate a given scene and he is respected for his remarkable compositions and representation of space. There are merely thirty-five paintings accredited to him, this is generally blamed on the fact that he was a very precise painter who had a fairly brief life and profession as a painter. It is also assumed that many of his paintings were lost after his death. With a few exceptions, including some landscapes, street scenes, and portraits, Vermeer chose to paint sunlit familial interiors in which one or two figures are shown reading, writing, or playing musical instruments, a style called Genre Interior which was pioneered in the Netherlands in the early 1600s. His dedication to women is one of the primary characteristics which you observe when presented with his work, with only around a third of his surviving works containing men.
The men in his pictures are generally in subordinate roles, and three times with their backs to the viewer of the painting. Men, when painted with women are both courting and attending, the women seemingly have the advantage and control. In Couple with a Wine Glass, one man sits in the corner resting his chin on his hand and another gentleman leans in to speak to the young lady, yet she ignores him; smiling out at the viewer. On the other hand one could say that the men are in command of the women in , , and ; in each of these works men are trying to seduce young women by offering them wine. The females represented have rather childish smiles and flush faces, this suggests that Vermeer upheld the opinion of the period that alcohol was the gateway towards prostitution and it ought to be forbidden for women to consume alcohol at all. Men only appear alone twice; in The Geographer and The Astronomer, in both of which the man is positioned behind a table and before a window, in the majority of Vermeer’s work this is the pictorial location of the women. It is said that in a lost painting of his, Vermeer illustrated a man washing his hands; a theme that other Dutch painters traditionally reserved for women. Are these men merely honorary women? Furthermore, in Diana and her Companions, where one would expect to see a man, there is no Actaeon to greet her. However, in terms of composition in the artist’s paintings, the male and female are often perfect opposites, yet at the same time he manages to balance their rendering to create a harmonious result. Take Officer and a Laughing Girl, for example, he has his back turned, whereas she faces out of the picture, his dark, silhouetted bulk complements her bright, colourful delicacy. In doing this he embellishes differences between the sexes as well as their mutual attraction.
