GIRL READING A LETTER BY AN OPEN WINDOW by Johannes Vermeer Apr 22, Giuseppe Torelli, composer (Concert Grossi op 8), is born in Italy. literature Moliere was anointed with the patronage of King Louis XIV. Molière left behind a body of work which not only changed the face of French classical comedy, but has gone on to influence the work of other dramatists the world over. The greatest of his plays include The School for Husbands (1661), The School for Wives (1662), The Misanthrope (1666), The Doctor in Spite of Himself (1666), Tartuffe (1664,1667,1669), The Miser (1668), and The Imaginary Invalid (1673). science & philosophy Amsterdam naturalist Jan Swammerdam, 21, gives the first description of red blood cells. He will complete his medical studies in 1667 but devote himself to studying insects, tadpoles, frogs, and mammals rather than practicing medicine.

history Sep 3, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the New Commonwealth, i.e. ruler over England’s Puritan parliament, dies at age 59. Richard Cromwell succeeded his father as English Lord Protector. It has been estimated that there were about 650 to 750 painters working in the Netherlands in 1650s or about one for each 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants, in Delft one out of every 500. By comparison, the number of painters in Renaissance Italy was about one every 330, in a population of some 9 million. Most Dutch painters came from middle-class families since painting generally did not offer sufficient status to attract the wealthy and the poor could rarely afford the training. As their status and social ambition rose, some Dutch artists assumed the manners, and dress, of their wealthy clients. Vermeer himself appears to have made serious efforts to cast himself as a gentleman/artist. When Vermeer turned his attention to the domestic interior motif, he entered into a highly competitive niche market already dominated by a few exceptional artists such as Gerrit ter Borch, Frans van Mieris and Gerrit Dou.

These painters specialized in themes of upper-class domestic interiors, now grouped togehter with a host of other subjects under the term ï¿½genre.ï¿½ Their work displays an truly astonishing level of detai,l at times near microscopic, and required enormous number of work hours making them affordable for a select few. Dou is reported to have sold some works for more than 1,000 guilders or roughly the equivalent of the venerated great Italian Masters. A modest Dutch house could be had for less. Before the 1650s, few rooms in the typical middle-class Dutch house had specialized functions. Beds, for example, were placed in halls, kitchens or wherever they could fit. But when rooms did assume a particular use, it was often reflected in the paintings chosen to decorate them—domestic scenes or religious images were selected more often for private areas of the house while landscapes or city views were shown in public areas. Typical Dutch homes were generally far more cluttered and not as well-lit as the pristine environments that appear in Vermeer's compositions.

The image of the famous 17th-century doll house created by Petronella Dunois very likely affords a more accurate idea of the furniture arrangement and density of a true Dutch well-to-do home. Although exceptionally few Dutch domestic envirnoments have survived, a few doll's houses made in Amsterdam in the second half of the 17th century are regarded as an inexhaustible source of information about the furnishing of grand merchant's houses in the heyday of the Dutch Republic. One such doll-house was commissioned by Petronella Oortsman (1656-1718), who as a wealthy widow married the silk merchant Johannes Brandt in 1686. She started assembling her doll's house shortly after marriage. The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam estimates that Petronella Oortman spent twenty to thirty thousand guilders on her model house, the price of a real house along one of Amsterdam's most sought-after canal locations at that time. It took nearly 20 years to build. Merry Company at a Table Hendrick van der Burch 55 x 69 cm.

Private collection Historians of economics have estimated that out of five million works of art that were created in the Dutch Republic during the 17th century. Interiors views and still-lives comprised at least 10% of the total output, or about five hundred thousand works. And since these works are so expertly painted, the viewer tends to believe that the artist painted exactly what was in front of him. However, the most outstanding aspect of these images, namely, their apparent capacity to offer unmediated access to the past, is paradoxically the most deceptive. Art historians have come to the conclusion that we are dealing with a case of modified reality (see left) rather than a literal transcription of Dutch homes. The sitters in their environments which we see were meticulously arranged combining both real and fictive elements. While the window casements and walls in Vermeer's rooms appear to be factual, the marble floors were fictive. While more humble objects, such as the porcelain wine jugs, tables, pictures, mirrors and maps, were probably Vermeer's own. On the other hand the luxurious hand-woven tapestries, the keyboard instruments and gilt chandelier were borrowed brought in for the occasion.

Vermeer had full access to these luxury items through his rich Delft patron Pieter van Ruijven or similar channels. In a certain sense Vermeer's painted environments are analogous to the photo reproductions of today's interiors design magazines advertising luxury homes, which are assembled only to be photographed and afterwards disassembled. They both portray an ideal interior—brighter, cleaner, neater and more richly decorated. Moreover, these pictures were expensive commodities in themselves which would have bolstered cultural pretensions of their owners. The signature of Catharina Bolnes on a legal document Many writers believe that this handsome young woman is Vermeer's wife, Catharina Bolnes. As is the case for the vast number of common 17th-century men and women, the voice of Catharina Bolnes has been lost. Not a single letter, diary entry or note by her hand has survived. Only once are we able to pick up her faint voice through a document dated 24th and 30th April, 1676.

Catharina, in a desperate attempt to flea the grip of her creditors after the untimely death of her husband, spoke of her Johannes so: "as a result and owing to the great burden of his children, having no means of his own, he had lapsed into such decay and decadence, which he had so taken to heart that, as if he had fallen into a frenzy, in a day or day and a half had gone from being healthy to being dead." After Johannes' death Catharina was alone with her mother, saddled with ten minors and full of debt. Catharina would have remained silent had it not been for the notoriety of her husband for whom historians have combed every shred of documentary evidence that could have possible regarded the artist, his colleagues and his family. What we know largely emerges from legal testimonies elegantly transcribed on vellum ledger books by Dutch notaries, probably the most meticulous note-takers of all times. The evidence which regards Catharina tells us that we are in front of an exceptional woman, at least in relation to the 750,000 women of the time who lived in the Netherlands.

Portrait of Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719) author of De groote en schilderessen (The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters), in an engraving by his son Jacob. The popular myth about Vermeer's fame goes that he was recovered from total obscurity by the French critic Thoré-Bürger in the mid-1800s. Like many myths, this one contains some but not all the truth. Although Vermeer was not well known in his time outside his native town Delft, his works were never completely forgotten. After the artist's early death, some of his works continued to be of considerable value to several generations of Amsterdam collectors with money and taste, and a few works continued to evoke admiration and high prices whenever they came onto the market. But for unclear reasons, the name of Vermeer was excluded from Arnold Houbraken's Groote Schouburgh, the foundational 18th-century Dutch book on artists. Thus, for almost 150 years after his death Vermeer's fame hardly spread out of the Netherlands. It is a curious fact that the Vermeer canvases which left the Netherlands were not infrequently attributed to familiar Dutch artists known to outsiders.

In 1742, for example, his Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window came to Dresden as a Rembrandt. Interior with a Dordrecht Family (detail) Nicolaes Maes 112.4 x 121.0 cm. The Norton Simon Foundation The type of Chinese porcelain that appears in this work was imported in huge quantities for European consumption by the East Indies Company, or VOC as it was called by the Dutch. Vermeer and his fellow citizens must have been particularly familiar with objects of this kind because Delft was one of six towns in Holland that had a chamber of the VOC. As the world's first multi-national company, the VOC had commercial interests all over the globe and accessed the world's oceans through Delfshaven, Delft's 17th-century harbor town. With a little imagination, one can picture merchant ships busily unloading their precious cargoes on the quay of Vermeer's View of Delft connected to Delfshaven by the canal which exits the right-hand part of the composition.

To give an idea of the colossal proportions of the porcelain trade, in 1608, one of the first years of organized trade, the VOC had ordered 50,000 butter dishes, 10,000 plates, 2,000 fruit dishes, and 1,000 of salt cellars, mustard pots and various wide bowls and dishes plus an unspecified number of jugs and cups. In a few years, these articles could be found in many Dutch households. In 1640, the ship Nassau carried an astronomical number of pieces, 126,391 in all, to Amsterdam. The trade with China continued until the mid-17th century when civil wars caused by the fall of the Ming dynasty (1644) disrupted suppliers and the European traders turned to Japan. Fine porcelain would have normally been displayed on the household's best cabinets or on specially made racks. Nonetheless, these rare objects had no cultural value for the Dutch outside the fact that they were exotic, precious and expensive regardless of their style or even their quality.

Thus for Vermeer, the exotic motifs which decorated them no symbolic meaning, and, theus, they must be taken literally as rare objects, beautiful in themselves. Chinese potters had produced porcelain for export markets all over the world. Ironically, what the Dutch considered the epitome of style was second rate porcelain for the Chinese. The special models made for exportation rarely attracted Chinese taste. Many of these "unpalatable" hybrids appear in Dutch still life paintings, and were taken as the epitome of refinery. Instead, products destined for Chinese domestic consumption were made according to higher standards of taste and facture. Period documents reveal that finest exemplars were not allowed out of the country on penalty of corporal punishiment. The Dutch had no regard of porcelain's original use and as years passed, it eventually found its way onto the dinner table because it was incredibly easy to clean and did not pass on food's e flavor to the next meal. Even though the Dutch were poor judges of Chinese standards they knew that they surpassed anything produced in Europe. Woman with a Basket of Fruit Christiaen van Couwenbergh 107.5 x 93 cm.

Gemäldesammlung der Universität, Göttingen There exists a long tradition of paintings of woman with luscious fruit. Symbolically, fruit could alternately allude to the figure of Venus (the goddess of love) in the Judgment of Paris or the Biblical apple (the symbol of sin) of Adam and Eve. The appearance of fruit in European easel painting exceeds any other kinds of food although very rarely do we see the fruit actually being eaten. Fruit's popularity as a motif in painting is owed to its visual appeal, brilliant colors, shapes and variety of peculiar textures, making fruit a particularly stimulating challenge. Moreover, fruit generally has positive associations owing to its sweetness. From the 16th century on, artists created numerous portraits of beautiful women accessorized with fruit or holding bowls or attractive baskets of it. Bowls and baskets of fruit were commonly features in busts of the figure of the "temptress" in works by Dutch painters such as Gerrit van Honthorst and Christiaan van Couwenbergh. In the Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Vermeer displays in great evidence an imported Chinese Wan-Li bowl with peaches, plums and perhaps a large apple.

One peach has been halved with its rounded pit exposed to the viewer. The exhibit of ripe fruit alludes, perhaps, to the fullness of the letter reader, perhaps, opened, or "ripe," for love. A Dutch poet once recommended to "send apples, send pears or other fruit" to win over the heart of one's lover drawing inspiration from Ovid's Ars Amatoria. Four years after Vermeer was accepted into the St Luke Guild in Delft, he painted the present work and established his definitive artistic course. No evidence explains what might have induced him to reject his initial classical teachings—of an unknown master—and foray into the mode of genre painting. But so divergent was his new approach that had they not been signed, it is doubtful that scholars would have ever attributed the early Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Diana and her Companions and even the Procuress to Vermeer. In the 17th-century Netherlands, independence from one's master was not unusual. Some painters were satisfied to preserve the artistic tradition of their masters while many broke away to explore new themes and styles. No few painters worked successfully in different styles.

Samuel Van Hoogstraten, an important painter and art theoretician of the time, painted simultaneously in the "antique" mode, producing large-scale history paintings of biblical and classical themes, small trompe-l'œil paintings and a few genre scenes of contemporary life clearly anchored in the "modern" mode. Interior painters occasionally tried their hand at still life and some portrait painters, who worked in one of the most highly specialized fields, dabbled in the distant landscape genre. In the Netherlands, the amazing variety of available themes and techniques had been stimulated by an open and variegated art market and the absence of official academies. The only requirements for changing modes of painting was sufficient talent and a knack for understanding what might appeal to a given clientele. Johann Sebastian Bach Johannes Vermeer: Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (Getty Center Installation) repeat off Hear curator Anne Woollett on Woman in Blue Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin . Vermeer's quiet scene is at once familiar and enigmatic. The composition is so meticulously ordered, that every element contributes to the reflective mood of the female subject at its center.

Standing motionless at a table before an unseen window, a young woman intently reads the crisp page of a letter —possibly a precious message from a lover. On the table, a second page of the missive partially covers a string of large pearls on a blue ribbon , perhaps just removed from the open jewelry box nearby. The woman is comfortably dressed in a blue padded bed jacket (beddejak), decorated with yellow bows on the front and sleeve, and a long heavy skirt. Soft morning light highlights her forehead and glances across the delicate fabric of the jacket, but leaves the bow around a side curl of her hair and the back of her form in deep shadow. It glints off the large brass nails decorating the Spanish chairs, which have lions head finials, as well as the small tacks along the edge of the seat. In a masterful demonstration of Vermeer's command (and manipulation) of optical effects, the chairs and map rail casts bluish shadows on the wall, but not the woman herself. In keeping with the delicate atmosphere of the interior, he softened the topography represented on the large map of Holland and West Friesland to muted blue, taupe and ocher tonalities that suggest her complex internal state.

This is Vermeer's most refined and enigmatic treatment of the popular theme of letter reading. Although the content of the correspondence is a mystery, the woman's bent head and parted lips impart a sense of suspense. The significance of the woman's rounded silhouette, which was reduced along the back by Vermeer during the painting process, has prompted much debate since the late 19th century. For some viewers, her shape suggests pregnancy, which would have been an untypical subject for the period. As seen in other paintings by Vermeer and his contemporaries, the conical shape in style in the mid-1660s was achieved by wearing a flared jacket over a thick skirt turned over at the waist. Dutch Scenes of Domestic Interiors Left: The Music Lesson, Gerard Ter Borch, about 1668. Oil on canvas, 26 5/8 x 21 7/8 in. (67.7 x 55.6 cm). Right: The Drawing Lesson, Jan Steen, about 1665. Oil on panel, 19 3/8 x 16 1/4 in.

(49.2 x 41.2 cm). The J. Paul Getty Museum Woman in Blue Reading a Letter represents one of Vermeer's most enigmatic depictions of a new theme in Dutch genre painting (subjects from everyday life): well-to-do women in domestic settings, often so preoccupied that they are oblivious to the viewer's gaze. This special installation highlights the variety of artistic contributions to the popular theme of the intimate interior in the 1660s to complement Vermeer's quiet, harmonious reader. Gerard ter Borch's Music Lesson , Jan Steen's Drawing Lesson , Pieter de Hooch's Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy , and Frans van Mieris's The Doctor's Visit from the Getty Museum's collection, as well as Gabriel Metsu's An Elegant Lady Writing at Her Desk with a Dog beside Her and Frans van Mieris's A Young Woman Feeding a Parrot (both on loan from private collections in New York) share refined brushwork and dazzling illusionism in the rendering of highly-constructed private spaces. Vermeer Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) was born and spent his comparatively brief career in Delft.

A meticulous and careful painter whose innovations were not well-known outside his native city, he may have produced about fifty paintings in just over twenty years, of which about thirty-five survive. Despite extensive archival research that has revealed much about the difficult financial circumstances of the artist's life, familial relationships and avid support by a local patron, many questions about his life and artistic practice remain. After an early career as a large-scale history painter, Vermeer turned his attention to the interior domestic realm in about 1656. The apparently closely observed moments of private activity and thought he captured in paint are in fact artful constructs, in which Vermeer deployed his sophisticated command of perspective, optical effects, and emotional impact of color to create plausible, yet somehow elusive subjects. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter epitomizes the directness and quiet grandeur of his approach at mid-career. Vermeer at the Getty The presentation of Woman in Blue Reading a Letter pays tribute to the rewarding partnership between the Rijksmuseum and the Getty. In recent years, the two institutions have exchanged significant loans for exhibitions and fruitfully collaborated on conservation projects, notably the treatment and study at the Getty of the pair of large portraits by Frans Hals , on view in the same gallery.

A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window | Johannes Vermeer's influence and inspiration Johannes Vermeer's influence and inspiration A collaborative project by 4th year students of English Language, courses 2007/11, from Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao (Spain) Main Menu · by Ainhoa López · in General . · This oil on canvas was created in 1657 and it is a genre (an interior) scene. Nowadays it is housed in Gemaldegalerie (Berlin). This painting depicts a corner of a room where there is a young woman reading a letter by an open window. We can see an Orienatl rug and a bowl of fruit on a table. If we focus our eyes on the window we see the reflection of the girl’s face. In the right side of the painting we see a large green curtain and there is a bare wall in the back. Some critics say that the first time we look at this painting we focus our eyes first on the window, then on the chair and finally, on the letter. The frame of the window drives our eyes to the chair that it is placed below the window, and this one drives our eyes to the letter the girl reads.

The angle of the bowl of fruit and the girl’s forearm are parallel so we relate them visually. This painting seems to be a photograph since it has no movement. The lack of movement makes the viewer be a mere observer of the scene, they cannot participate in it. Johannes Vermeer was a master in the way he focused the light. He chose the places where set the light up carefully because the light drives the viewers’ eyes. This painting has five points of light that emphasize the most important elements of it: * The window * The bowl of fruit * The letter When the painting was analysed by X-rays a painting of a Cupid appeared on the wall. Since that moment many theories that try to explain why Vermeer decided to removed it have appeared. Some of them are: *He removed it because it would call the attention of the viewers and he wanted them to observe the scene as a whole. * Vermeer did not want the viewers to know the subject of the letter. Having a painting of a Cupid would tell them that it was a love letter. We can also guess that it was a love letter if we look at the bowl of fruit that contains apples (remind the viewr of Eve’s sin) and peaches.

Taking into account the removed Cupid the viewers come to the conclusion that it is a love letter and because of the bowl of fruit they imagine that the girl has an extramarital love relationship. Alejandro Vergara claims that “the reflection of the girl in the window emphasizes the importance of the letter, which becomes the psycological axis of the painting.” The girl is reading alone in a room. The window is opened so she has the outside world in front of her but she did not care about it. Nothing but the letter is important for her. The girl’s face matches with the one of “The Woman in Blue Reading a Letter”. Some critics claim that the woman of these two paintings is Vermeer’s wife, Catharina Bolnes. This theory can be true because when Vermeer lived this was considered a demonstration of affection. The girl’s face is blank so it does not provide the viewers with any type of information of what the girl thinks about. Another important element of this painting is the curtain, that became popular in the mid 17th century. Vermeer placed a curtain because he wanted to provide the whole scene with intimacy. The viewers realize that they were watching a private scene through it.

Vermeer was very good at defining the physical limits of the space of a painting. This was one of his strategy in order to separe the viewers from the figure. In this painting, the physical limits are defined through the walls, the curtains and the table. The letter is an upper class element because in the 17th century only privilege people were able to write. The letter can be seen as a metaphore about the importance of privacy. The girl keeps her life private from the audience by ignoring it. The viewer is unable to know the feelings of the girl. If we look carefully at the letter we realize that there is nothing written on it. This is another Vermeer’s strategy to separate the viewers from the figure of the painting because they cannot know what it is happening, only the girl knows the meaning of the letter. In order to do this painting, Johannes Vermeer used trompe-l’oeil and impasto techniques. Through trompe-l’oeil the curtains appear to be three dimensions. Impasto was usually used to highlight the main parts or elements of the painting because it attrack the viewers’ eyes. This technique consisted of an application of a thick opaque layer of paint. *Johannes Vermeer.

In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12:07, March 15,2010, from *Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window by Johannes Vermeer. Retrieved 17:24, April 2, 2010, from  *A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window by Johannes Vermeer. In Essential Vermeer. Retrieved 20:15, April 10, 2010, from vermeer.com/cat_about/open.html *Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window by Johannes Vermeer. In Virtual Vermeer. Retrieved 10:43, April 25, 2010, from *Private Correspondences. Retrieved, 15:03, May 2, 2010, from *Trompe-l’oeil. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved, 17:36, May 16, 2010, from ’%C5%93il *Impasto. In Essential Vermeer.

Retrieved, 21:02, May 16, 2010, from Like this: 3 responses to “A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window” Richard A. Smith May 26, 2010 at 1:45 pm · · Pointille is the name for a technique used sometimes in metalwork decoration which is descriptive of the hammered dots that make up the entire pattern of the design. That is part of the reason that Pointillism in the paintings of those like Georges Seurat was coined, and in derision by critics, for its dots of pure colour paint covering the entire surface of the canvas, as an intellectual answer to the Impressionists (another derogatory term) attempts to portray how colour is mixed directly by the eye that receives the everchanging light of day. As we move onward into today, we have the mixture of the dots of the photograpic inage and television and pixelization of images of which Suerat, in hindsight, may be considered the prophetic voice. Vermeer knew nothing of these things.

That he enjoyed the photograhic images of the Camera Obscura, I do not doubt; but, that he was using a pointillist technique is not true. That he adopted using dots of paint occassionally with no set pattern is evident. This, very likely the result of his “photographic” observations, he used on bread or the side of a docked boat to great effect, as a device, possibly to heighten a sense of reality, but that was not his technique. Vermeer was studied and admired, much as Turner was, in the English tradition, as the precursors to Impressionism, and I think that that is a legitimate insight. Vermeer was not a fly speck painter like Gerritz Dou. Vermeer’s technique was not every detail, but was every necessary detail and LESS. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter is as close to a portrait as the Girl by the Open Window, but the women are no the same person in my view. It is seductive to believe they are due to the twin-like character of the poses. Close observation, even remembering that these are paintings and not photographic works, will attest tha the shapes of the heads and features are different. The more obvious difference is the hair colour.

I suggest that a reasonable comparison is found in the sleeping girl with the, later, Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid. As I have formerly pointed out, a reversal, mirror image of one of these beside the other makes a good match. It is not that there can’t be differences in the painted images – the Astronomer and the Geographer are different, but the same man. The ladies in question, though, are discrepant figures in a common pose. Vermeer was, of course, not above repeating themes. Yet, his ideas were always evolving, as did also, his growth in technique. Leonardo da Vinci was less inclined to repeat ideas, but even if there were similarities, such as using a profile for a portrait, the differences in the sitters would necessitate a unique approach. This is why I argue that the “Mona Lisa” is not Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, but, rather Isabella D’Este, Duchese of Mantua. Certain repetitions are expected, such as the profile portrait. What would, to me, be unthinkable is that Leonardo would repeat the position of the hands in a formulaic way for two sitters.

Rather, his acute observation and creativity would demand a new and individual response. I am referring to the drawing of Isabella, which he completed in 1501, when he was commissioned to paint this renaissance woman of incredible wit and a patron of art and encourager of artists. At the time, Isabella needed a personal likeness that would be copied for coinage. Leonardo did a drawing of her in profile, but no painting, according to history was ever delivered to the Lady. Though there are differences, minor in imporance, such as length of the nose, the overall comparison between the drawing and Mona Lisa are compelling. Minor changes to the drawing in side-by-side comparison will convince. The most important “documentation” that this, indeed, is Isabella is the positioning of her hands suggested at the bottom of the drawing. Would Da Vinci use the characteristic form with two different sitters? The following link affords a look into research that corroborates the above hypothesis and gives possible indicators as to the identities of two Ladies and the Lisa called Belle Ferroniere, who resides in the same room as “MONA ISABELLA” in the Louvre.

January 11, 2011 at 10:48 am · · This is Francesco II, Marchese de Mantova (Mantua), in the link, who married Isabella D’Este in 1490. She was sixteen; he twenty-four. The marriage was arranged when Isabella was six years old. He is described as being short, snub-nosed and with bulging eyes. Isabella sought to know him in the years preceding their wedding and came to admire his courage, as he was to become a respected commander of armies. His eyes may have bulged like Peter Lorre of the Hollywood films, but not to indicate that a thyroid condition might have been the cause. In fact, it may have been his Lady’s eyes that required medical intervention. Isabella may have, to one degree or another, suffered a strabismus of one of her eyes. The turning of one eye either in or out, whether constantly or intermittently is experienced by a surprisingly large percentage of the population (5-6% ?). Da Vinci, who was the first anatomist and “medical” illustrator of the Renaissance, would have had more than a passing interest in the phenomena.

His interest in Isabella’s eyes may have prompted him to attempt her portrait from memory with the aid of the profile side view that was to be a painted portrait originally. The eyes of the Mona Lisa (Isabella) are said to appear follow one across the room. Leonardo’s attention to her eye’s iris placement in relation to one another is the means to that end. A slight raise of her right eyebrow in the picture by the Gonzaga’s artist, who made miniture portraits of family members such as Francesco, above, and Isabella at the time of her marriage, is seen in the side view that Da Vinci drew. The patented Mona Lisa smile at the left or opposite corner of her mouth may have given a strange impression or expression to her face. In a painting, said to be a possibly “idealised” portrait of Isabella by Caroto, has the lip curl on the right rather than left, but seems to a slight wall-eye placement of the irises of her eyes. It may be that Leonardo was thinking of the woman’s vision problem when he painted the separate and distinct landscapes with different horizons on two levels. Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window Baroque Johannes Vermeer Painting in Oil for Sale Remember password orgot your password?

Not Registered Yet? Introduction of Oil Painting Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window Baroque Johannes Vermeer Handmade art reproductions of Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window Baroque Johannes Vermeer are available in any sizes as oil painting and other art forms. Above is Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window Baroque Johannes Vermeer for sale, the price is only 5%-20% of the retailing prices at galleries in your city! You may purchase the artwork as oil painting reproduction, acrylic painting, watercolor, gouache, wax crayon, pencil sketch, pastel, and charcoal drawings. If you want to purchase the handmade oil painting Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window Baroque Johannes Vermeer in irregular/special size, please fill out "Customer Instructions" in your shopping cart. If you have any other questions about the work painted by hand, please contact Toperfect Art. Comments on Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window Baroque Johannes Vermeer Painting for Sale No comments yet. Understanding A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window by Johannes Vermeer Vermeer and the Dutch Interior 2003, pp.

251-252 This painting is part of a group of works painted by Vermeer in the late 1650s which mark the start of his mature period. Other works of this period include Officer and Laughing Girl (New York, The Frick Collection), The Milkmaid (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), and The Glass of Wine (Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemaldegalerie). In these paintings the artist depicts the corner of a relatively large room which is lit through a window on the left side. This compositional formula is inspired by the work of Pieter de Hooch (upper right), who nonetheless differs from Vermeer in locating his figures closer to the foreground. Vermeer's figures at this period are smaller than those in his earlier works, while his technique is more precise. The figure in the background of this simple and ordered interior rests his head on his hand in a melancholy attitude, while in the foreground a young woman takes a wine glass which an elegantly dressed man hands to her. The young woman's smile and the man's attitude indicate that we are witnessing a scene of seduction, and that the girl is largely accepting her admirer's advances.

Also starting at this period is a greater attention to the way in which light falls on the objects and different materials, highlighting the textures (second upper right). Along with the characteristically self-absorbed character of his figures, the most famous characteristic of Vermeer's work is its lifelikeness, the result of a complex and exquisite exercise in the transformation of reality. Some aspects of this painting allow us to approximate the way in which the artist achieved these ends. The lower frame of the window, for example, directs the spectator's gaze towards a chair which extends the gaze further so that we arrive at the strongly, illuminated letter which the young woman is holding. The reflection of the girl in the window emphasizes the importance of the letter, which becomes the psychological axis of the painting. As in other works by Vermeer, the chair acts to clarify the spatial relations between the elements in the room, in this case the table and the end wall. The open window which reflects the girl's face projects a slight shadow on the wall, echoing its shape and also helping to define the location of the girl's face.

The angle of the fruit bowl and the girl's forearm are parallel and thus visually related, so that we connect the golden sleeve of the girl with the large green curtain on the right. This type of formal relation between the elements in the painting defines its visual rhythms, which the spectator becomes aware of in a slow and gradual process. We know from x-rays that initially the end wall, just above and to the right of the young woman, had a painting of Cupid (the same one that appears in A Lady Standing at a Virginal ), but that Vermeer eliminated this element in the final composition. This image would have made it clear that the content of the letter which the woman is reading is of an amorous nature. In its initial form, the vanishing point of the perspective would have been in the center of the lower part of the painting of Cupid, which would therefore have been a very important element in the painting. It is revealing of Vermeer's working method that when he removed the painting he did not alter the scene further, other than adding the curtain on the right to balance the visual weight of the other side of the composition. The ability to express the emotions of his figures in a particular situation is one of Vermeer's most unique characteristics.

In this case, his decision to remove the painting of Cupid from the end wall results in an exceptionally evocative scene; nothing distracts us from the painting's message, which is the idea of communication with an absent loved one. At the time when this painting was created in the late 1650s, Vermeer was in the process of changing his pictorial technique. Although in some earlier paintings we see the appearances of small dots of light, this technique, which functions to momentarily detain our gaze on specific areas of the painting, becomes ever more widespread in his work. The technique, which was possibly inspired by the images produced by an instrument known as a camera obscura and also has precedents in the work of artists such as Willem Kalf or Willem van Aelst would soon become one of Vermeer's most distinctive characteristics. The idea of including a curtain in the painting which seems to form part of the space occupied by the spectator has numerous precedents and became popular in Dutch art around the mid-17th century (lower right).

This device was partially inspired by reality, as we know from inventories and from paintings of picture collections that some paintings, in particular the most important ones or those that depicted nudes, were covered with cloths. There are also precedents for this in religious painting, indicating that curtains also added an effect of mystery and surprise to a scene, and contributed to its lifelikeness in that it confused the painted with the real space. The use of a cloth for illusionistic ends has an important classical precedent which Vermeer undoubtedly knew of Pliny the Elder's anecdote in his Natural History in which he recounts that the Greek painter Zeuxis wished to prove his artistic superiority to his rival Parrhasius ' and thus painted some grapes which were so realistic that some birds attempted to peck at them. Parrhasius' response was to paint a curtain over the picture which he did with such skill that Zeuxis tried to pull it back. A Woman Drinking with Two Men, and a Serving Woman c. 1658 Oil on canvas, 73.7 x 64.6 cm.

The National Gallery, London A Sermon in the Oude Kerk, Delft Emanuael de Witte Oil on panel, 73 x 60 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa The Painting in the 20th c. In 1742 the Elector of Saxony, August III, acquired this painting, which he believed to be a Rembrandt; the previous year he had bought The Procures s. During the Second World War both pictures were among Dresden's works of art hidden for safety and consequently spared from the British bombing. In 1945 they were seized by the Red Army as booty and secretly taken to Moscow. When the question of returning Dresden's pictures arose, the Soviet minister of culture wanted East Germany to allow two works to remain in Russia in gratitude. His choice, a masterpiece by Giorgione (c. 1476/8-1510) and Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window , is evidence of the importance of this early Vermeer. This proposal was dropped and both Vermeer's were among the paintings returned to Dresden in 1955.

from: Martin Bailey, Vermeer , London, 1995 John Michael Montias Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History 1989, pp. 150-151 By the time he painted the Dresden picture in the late 1650s, Vermeer had completed his artistic training, in the sense that he had finally absorbed the impact of the artists— Van Baburen , Van Loo , Fabritius , Frans van Mieris , Pieter de Hooch , Nicolaes Maes —who decisively influenced the evolution of his style. He had not matured quickly or developed an independent style especially early. He had been late in acknowledging the discoveries in the treatment of light and space that his innovative colleagues of the Delft , Leyden , and Dortrecht schools had pioneered. But he had digested each of these influences fully before going on to study the next development in the modern art of his time. This slow maturation, grafted onto a prodigious natural talent, laid the ground for his later masterpieces. WebMuseum: Vermeer, Jan: Woman in Blue Reading a Letter Woman in Blue Reading a Letter c.

1662-63; Oil on canvas, 46.5 x 39 cm; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam A young woman is reading a letter, around her are a table and chairs. She is illuminated by the light from what is presumably a window. On the wall behind her is a map. The artist has achieved a muted tone with his use of blues and browns. Vermeer has played here with the light and shadow. While the map and the chair cast a distinct shadow on the wall, the woman does not. It makes her stands out from the background. The subtle gradations of color and the contrasts in this painting were already greatly admired two hundred years ago. A 1791 auction catalogue remarks on 'the pleasing effects of light and shadow'. Love letter ? In Dutch genre painting a woman reading a letter was usually a reference to love. The map on the wall may refer to a distant lover, but the painting offers no further clues to a hidden meaning. The map, showing Holland and West Friesland appears in an earlier painting by Vermeer of the Soldier and the Laughing Girl . This picture, painted in 1658, is now in the Frick Collection in New York.

Although the young woman appears to be pregnant, this is not necessarily the case. The fashionable wide jacket she is wearing may make her figure appear fuller than it is. Lines and areas The woman is surrounded by furniture. The table and chairs define the space around her. Vermeer adjusted the balance in his painting by playing with the areas of light and shadow. X-ray photos show that the map on the wall was originally narrower. To improve the composition Vermeer made it wider. He also altered the woman's jacket. Originally it was a wider, fur-trimmed cloak. Vermeer made the jacket simpler and less wide. The woman's back, dark in shadow, stands out sharply against the light wall behind her. The contour of her back is clear and deliberately depicted, while other lines are more fuzzy, such as the illuminated profile of her face. Credits: The Rijksmuseum , Amsterdam. We all know how annoying it can be in a crowded gallery to overhear the comments of other patrons discussing a work. And the Vermeer show was of course so crowded that this was inevitable. Yet my experience in the exhibition was that as viewers approached this painting, they assumed a hushed silence.

It was as if no one dared to interrupt the woman's concentration on the contents of her letter. In this painting, Vermeer has rendered an intense contrast by combining the dynamically expectant posture of the woman with a geometric composition that locks her in space. The woman is placed precisely in the center of the composition. A table and chairs erect a framework around her statuesque profile. The strong horizontal of the bar at the bottom of the map focuses attention on her hands holding the letter. This compositional grid restricts any hint of motion and denies physical release of the woman's emotional excitement. It seems as if the wandering patterns of the map above her head are her only outlet and express her inner turmoil. The geometric arrangement does not end with the positive elements of map, table and chairs. Vermeer incorporated the negative shapes of the wall into the structure as well. The asymmetrical balance of these shapes provides additional stabilization of the composition. The importance of these spaces to Vermeer is revealed through an x-radiograph, which shows that he extended the original map outline toward the left. This balanced the width of the wall areas to the left and right of the figure. Vermeer also used color to stabilize the design.

The blue of the jacket, chair and table coverings and the light brown of the dress and map exert a calming effect. The tonalities firmly affix the figure within the compositional framework. There are two light sources. This serves to diffuse the shadows, avoiding the harshness that a dominating light source would have imposed on the work. Yet again, Vermeer shows his willingness to revise reality to enhance his composition. The flow of light is subtly altered. While the chair and map cast shadows, the woman does not. Encompassing the woman in a diffuse light separates her from her temporal framework, which enhances the sense of permanence that she radiates. To intensify this effect, Vermeer went so far as to contour the figure with a line of light blue. Although no narrative in the painting makes the content of the letter explicit, there are references to it. In Dutch painting of this time, a letter is nearly always associated with love. The map, as well as the empty chair, allude to an absent lover. The sense of expectancy is made literal by the apparent pregnant condition of the woman. In Woman in Blue Reading a Letter , Vermeer achieved a remarkable synthesis of permanence and expectation.

The result is a powerful emotional expression that goes beyond the transient associations of the subject matter. ï¿½ 14 Oct 2002, Nicolas Pioch - Top - Up - Info Thanks to the BMW Foundation, the WebMuseum mirrors , partners and contributors for their support. Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window - Google Arts & Culture Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window Johannes Vermeerca. 1659 The painting can be placed at the beginning of a series of quiet interior scenes with few figures, which are characteristic of Vermeer 's oeuvre after the end of the 1650s. Read more 1000+ images about Johannes Vermeer on Pinterest | Baroque, Music lessons and The glass Woman Holding a Balance by Vermeer Another genius of the baroque period, notice the relationship between the balance and the painting within the painting of Christ's ascension and judgment See More Vermeer's 'Woman In Blue' Brings Her Mystery, Allure To L.A. : NPR Vermeer's 'Woman In Blue' Brings Her Mystery, Allure To L.A. Embed Embed Vermeer's 'Woman In Blue' Brings Her Mystery, Allure To L.A.

Vermeer's 'Woman In Blue' Brings Her Mystery, Allure To L.A. Embed Embed Susan Stamberg The Getty Museum is the last and only U.S. stop on the world tour of Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)/Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Trust hide caption Click Here To Enlarge Image toggle caption Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)/Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Trust Johannes Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring is easy to fall in love with — she's young, dewy, beautiful (Scarlett Johansson played her in the 2003 movie about the painting), and she looks right at you. But the 17th-century Dutch master's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter is different — her face is shadowed and she stands in profile, totally absorbed in her letter.

Pieter Roelofs recently accompanied Woman in Blue from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where she's on display until March 31, her first-ever appearance on the West Coast. Roelofs, the Rijksmuseum's curator for 17th-century Dutch painting, smilingly says he always dresses to match the painting he'll be discussing: Today he sports a deep-blue shirt and sky-blue tie. Vermeer's Woman in Blue, meanwhile, wears a short, full-cut blue jacket with a lustrous sheen that could be satin. The painter used different shades of blue to contour the jacket, which is pale and almost neon in front as she faces a window, and darkly shadowed in back. Vermeer made his beautiful blue — "celestial blue," as Vincent van Gogh called it — with lapis lazuli stones.

"They imported it from Afghanistan," Roelofs says, "already in the 17th century." Article continues after sponsorship Roelofs explains that the painter would grind a chunk of lapis lazuli into powder, "and then he added oil as a binding material." He only mixed a small amount of paint every day — just enough for the area of canvas he was working on. (After all, there were no paint-preserving tubes in 1663.) Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring is also showing on the West Coast, at the de Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco, until June 2. Courtesy of the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague hide caption Courtesy of the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague The Allure Of 'Woman In Blue' Woman in Blue could be Girl With a Pearl Earring's slightly older aunt — less innocent, more serious. Her mouth is slightly open; her head bends forward a bit. "It's really her and this piece of paper sent by someone, expressing a message that we do not know," Roelofs says. "We are part of the story, but we shouldn't be there, probably, and this is lovely.

I think that Vermeer — he's a master in creating these kind of connections between a person being depicted and us ... the beholders. And I think even after 350 years it still has these same kind of artistic qualities and power to involve us and make us part of the story." But Vermeer is only telling a bit of the story. Anne Woollett, Getty's curator of paintings, says there are still so many questions: We don't know who the lady is; we don't know who wrote the letter. "We don't really know what she's reading, whether she's re-reading a letter that came out of the box that's at the lower left, whether she's reading something that's just arrived," Woollett says. "Perhaps she was sitting on the chair on the right and she stood up to read something important. It's all very alluring." Vermeer's Instant, Enigmatic Message The Getty's website is inviting visitors to imagine the letter's first line. A professional writer will pick one submission, then create the rest of the message. Given how intent the woman looks, along with those parted lips, it just might be a love letter, penned in a distant place — at sea, maybe — and carefully composed.

In those days in Holland, good communication was highly valued. "There were manuals from France which gave some guidance about how to write to someone," Woollett says, "how to write those important thoughts and feelings in an elegant way."

Question: Who painted "Girl reading a letter" ?
Answer: Jan VERMEER