|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
Here, for the first time, we see the light, mood, complex composition, and the symbolism characteristic of mature Vermeer. In the painting The Girl Asleep, the women is well dressed, perhaps the lady of the house, and we are separated from her by a table and chair. There is a white pitcher, similar to that in The Glass of Wine and The Music Lesson; and in front of the girl is an almost invisible wine-glass: presumably she is sleeping off the wine. When the painting was sold in 1696, it was entitled Een dronke slafende Meyd aen een Tafel, [A drunken sleeping maid at a table], and then in 1737 it was sold again, but as Een slapent Vrouwtje [A sleeping young woman]. The painting is similar to the Nicholas Maes' The Lazy Maid, except that in the latter, the maid looks like she is really asleep, whereas the Vermeer maid seems to be only catnapping. The table is covered in a rich oriental carpet, with a bowl of fruit, symbolic of the Fall of Eve, and a partially wrapped egg, implying unbridled lust. Broken eggs on the floor are a common symbol in the work of another 17th century Dutch artist, Jan Steen. Above the girl is a dimly lit picture with a masked face visible-- it is thought to depict deception and sincerity in love. X-rays reveal that a man framed in the doorway has been painted over. There is a strong contrast between the rumpled look of the foreground and the spare orderliness of the back room, implying that the lady of the house is not doing her duties. Presumably her disappointments in her extra-marital affair made her hit the sauce and ignore her wifely duties. Vermeer executed this famous painting at the height of his powers. The formal, almost abstract, composition is presented as patterns of color and shape, but at the same time the ambiguity of the human relationship draws us in. The perfectly rendered window provides a frame at the left, and the spare horizontality of the roof-beams frames the picture at the top. The diagonal pattern of marble floor-tiles draws our eye into the picture and the pattern of rectangles on the back wall would be spoiled if any one of them were moved; in this geometric composition, one can imagine a preview of another great Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian. The woman playing the clavecin has her back to us, so that we see composition and human relationship rather than her face. But she is reflected in the mirror above her. The real and reflected heads are not consistent: in the mirror she seems to be turning towards the man.
Approximate Word count = 1734
Approximate Pages = 6.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|