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Vermeer and the Delft School
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Description
The Art of Painting is the largest picture painted by Vermeer after The Procuress of 1656. Vermeer kept the canvas between its execution and his early death in 1675. It seems likely that he intended the work as an extraordinary demonstration piece—a visual discourse on the virtues of his profession and a concrete example of what painting could achieve. In the 1660s connoisseurs ranging from the local patron Pieter Teding van Berkhout to the grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de' Medici, visited the studios of some of Holland's most accomplished painters, including that of Vermeer. The practice was expected of cultivated gentlemen, who were aware of such princely predecessors as Alexander the Great, Emperor Charles V, and Philip IV of Spain.
Teding van Berkhout may have had The Art of Painting in mind when he recalled in his diary on June 21, 1669, visiting "a famous painter named Vermeer who showed me some examples of his art, the most extraordinary and the most curious aspect of which consists in the perspective." A more seasoned connoisseur might have mentioned the composition's refinements of pattern, shape, color, and texture and the painter's treatment of light on a variety of surfaces, including tapestry, engraving, and sculpture.
The painter's model plays two parts, that of Clio, muse of history, and, in this self-referential work, that of a model who resembles the women in other pictures by Vermeer. Clio's laurel wreath and trumpet stand for honor and fame; laurel leaves also crown the artist's hand. This passage, like every part of the painting, is there to be noticed by the lover of art, who completes the work.
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Description