Research the work of Dutch realist genre painters and chose two or three paintings that particularly appeal to you. Find out what you can about the artist and their intentions. Look at the devices employed by the painter to draw the viewer into the experience of the occupants of the room.
what is genre painting? “genre painting, …..of scenes from everyday life, of ordinary people in work or recreation, depicted in a generally realistic manner” An artistic fashion which developed in Holland in the 17th century as it broke with catholic Baroque and art depicting great religious or mythological stories to an art which depicted the Protestant common man, or the wealthy merchant and his environment.
Vermeer (1632-1675) – The music lesson
Painting in the seventeenth century was a slow painstaking and accurate process of detailed transcription of image and colour by the use of many glazes. ref EssentialVermeer
However the acquisition of art was so popular in the financially blossoming Holland of the 17th century that many pictures were painted for a market that extended from the common shopkeeper to the rich merchant. With the growing importance of the merchant class images changed to include the genre painting or depiction of common people getting on with their daily lives, from tavern brawls to the quiet sophisticated interiors of the upper class depicted in Vermeer’s paintings. Commonly depicted themes in genre paintings included letter writing and reading, music making, courtship and domestic labour,and these images were repeated by artists as one copied and competed against another to sell his work and so the techniques involved in their depiction became very sophisticated. ref Essential Vermeer
Certain objects would have lead to the impression of style and class, particularly richly decorated fabrics, satin clothing and articles associated with education and learning such as writing, reading, maps and musical instruments all of which appear frequently in Vermeer’s artwork. ref: Essential Vermeer
Vermeer perfected the techniques involved in representing these articles, from old map paper to satin or silks to a perfection.
It is thought that Vermeer may have used the camera obscura in which the image of the scene was projected onto his canvas. “The camera obscura is ideal for studying the natural play of light and as an aid for composition. Contours tend to be very sharp, sometimes to the point of brittleness and impasto is used to convey the sparkle of light as well as texture.” ref: Essential Vermeer
Vermeer uses pointilles or dots of white to represent highlights which is thought to have been provoked by the camera obscura.
He is said to have put much thought into the composition of his pictures and changed the images constantly and subtly to produce the sensations that he sought.
Perspective was, along with the accurate depiction of fabrics, a well-respected skill and of great importance on the correct balance of his pictures. It is believed that Vermeer pinpointed the vanishing point in his paintings with a pin from which string ran out along the parallel edges of furniture or floors in the picture, but he was also thought to have used the camera obscura which being an image “photographic” image of the actual scene would have its perspective perfectly laid out in front of him. ref: Essential Vermeer His vanishing points are so arranged as to lead the viewer’s eye to the position of interest as dictated by the artist.
In the music lesson, the lines of the window sill,the line where floor and wall meet, the edge of the foreground table and a diagonal line through the white squares on the floor all meet in the centre of the girl’s back to where all our attention is initially directed. Objects help the eye to delve into the room as they produce a visual path from table through viola and chair to the participants at the piano (virginal) and to the mirror on the wall behind the girl playing the piano. The image of the girl’s face and the twisting of the floor tiles in the mirror then turns the eye to the man standing beside the piano. Does Vermeer crowd the objects of the room on the right side of his picture so as to highlight the perspective produced by the floor and window on the left.
We are told in the Essential Vermeer :that the image is full of articles associated with the wealthy, the satin jacket worn by the girl, the white jug standing in the foreground on a silver tray, on the rich fabric,the checked floor, the virginal or keyboard and that there are restrained feelings which are reflected in the choice of picture which hangs behind the man’s head.
I have always liked Vermeer, his ability to produce a soft, silent, sophisticated image of well to do intelligensia is very much an ideal world to which I would aspire and as did many in the seventeenth century.
Frans van Mieris (1635-1681)
A physician taking a lady’s pulse
A well respected artist in the seventeenth century who was revered by his fellows because of his ability to represent fabrics, in a city renowned for its textiles (Leiden).
I think I picked this image because of my previous career and the fact that pulse taking and patients never change. However, I am also fascinated by the interaction between the “swooning lady” and the serious almost evil look on the doctor’s face and the position of his left hand close to his temple. Here, contrary to the Vermeer composition, the people in the painting occupy the front of the picture and the perspective (produced by the bed curtains and the stair rail) takes our eye out of the picture to the door in the background.
There is a lot of confusing drama between the two figures, the women appears to swoon, but not convincingly, and the physician is pointing at his head perhaps confused as to what is happening or perhaps, putting a modern translation on the action, implying she is making it all up….(..the worried well, an attribute of the wealthy and well).
Why is she reading a book? Is it a bible because she fears for her life or is it a love story? What is the relevance of the golden bowl, red cloth and the carafe, are they objects of the doctors practice? Is the dark object on the left a screen and why is it so placed to block that side of the picture? Why is the eye taken through the room to the lighted door in the background does it represent an exit from life or, if she is love-sick is that the door through which her lover has disappeared? Why is there a wine glass on the cupboard with the blue and white pots ?
Samuel van HOOGSTRATEN
This image I have chosen because the view through the open door to domesticity has been reflected throughout history. A dark foreground surrounds the light at the centre of the picture, the decreasing sized door frames give perspective and the floor tiles, so popular in seventeenth century art, lead the eye to table and chair. However, before the eye rests on the table and chair its path is stopped by the slippers and the dark key in the door. The painting has a moralistic message (as described by the painting on the wall in the distance).
This peep show box which came across whilst researching seventeenth century genre painting which highlights the importance of the depiction of the interior of the Dutch houses at the time and is fascinating and very appealing to me:
Look at interiors that have been painted by various artists from different periods. look especially how illusions of space have been created,how doorways and windows form a part of the composition and how furniture and objects are depicted either as a central focus for the painting or as secondary to any human drama.
1586 Interior of a Gothic Church
Going back in time this image from the sixteenth century takes us down the aisle of a gothic church. The people depicted get smaller as the view recedes into the distance and the immense sense of perspective is produced by the converging lines of the floor and walls which meet at the artist’s eye level at the cross above the main altar. Also, producing an intense feel of the perspective are the columns which appear to get closer together as they recede into the distance, and the arches and vaults of the ceiling whose shapes change in a complex pattern with distance.
William Hogarth
Marriage a la mode 2 Tete a tete
The three figures at the front of the image sit in a large room which enters a second room through an archway displaying many pictures on its walls. The perspective produced by the fireplace and the frames of the painting speak of large long rooms. Hogarth was more interested in the drama being played out in those rooms by the figures than by the furnishings. But the grandeur of the rooms, the art and furniture help paint the picture of the people depicted.The fallen chair is the largest object in the left front of the picture, a symbol in its fallen psoition with its legs pointing towards the lady.
Harold Gilman (1876-1919)
A wonderfully coloured image of two women sitting having tea at a round table which forms the centre front of the painting. There is a large empty chair to the left of the table which is set for four people. Directly behind the middle woman at the table is a bed her torso and head in the foreground being larger than the depth of the bed. The bed extends across the picture horizontally below a dado rail which is just below the middle of the painting. A large window is set into the wall on the left and a door into the wall on the right so balancing the image as the two walls converge towards the back wall with its blue and pink flowered wall paper and the picture. The ceiling is visible and helps with the enclosed image and the size of the room.
The kitchen Here the open door with its angles and the floor leads us to the lady in the kitchen whose back is facing ourselves. She is framed by the door and stands before the window. Her size and that of the window indicate the distance between the first room through to the kitchen. The image is very similar to the View of Interior with slippers by Samuel van HOOGSTRATEN painted two hundred years earlier.
Gwen John (1876-1939)
This pale and bright image depicts a table in the left foreground with a domestic scene of teapot, cup and book and a window in the right background. There is little else in the image but the angled wall around the window.There is little colour beyond the white and grey,which is tinted green on the walls and lilac on the floor, except for a hint of pink brown for the teapot and a yellowish tint of the table. The overlapping positions of the table contents and of the table against the wall are all that form the composition of this soft quiet and domestic painting.
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)
Table in this picture the table occupies much of the lower half or two-thirds of the image and converges on the figure. The door and sideboard in the background are smaller in dimension and partially covered by the objects and figure in the foreground so indicating they lie behind the table and figure. The object on the right has a line of perspective which reflects the table edges, however the perspective is distorted and although the figure appears to be the point at which the painters interest rests the lines of perspective meet above the head of the figure, perhaps indicating the painter was standing and looking down on the objects on the table.
Escher
Hand with reflecting sphere 1935
This is perspective made more complex because it is reflected in a sphere. The artist’s hand and then arm,torso and face dominate the mid front of the picture, a bookshelf and furniture lead into the image to the distant window.
Escher was famous for his distortions of perspective which deceived the eye e.g. the House of stairs 1951
Edward Hopper (1882-1996)
In this image of a corner street cafe , there is a feeling of space and emptiness in the darkness which is lit by the quiet atmosphere of the cafe light and the individuals depicted inside. The whole image depends on a large window whose borders run across the picture converging on a spot off the left side of the picture, so the eye is taken to the deserted street behind the cafe. The contrasting bright light on the right on the cafe wall send reflection onto the pavement on the left front of the image and highlight the figures at the cafe bar. There is no furniture except a long counter which follows the line of the receding window and provides a prop for the figures.
Richard Hamilton (1922-2011)
David Hockney
A dining room set for a meal for seven, demonstrates irregular perspectives. A table that is larger at the far end, walls that lean outwards, a ceiling and coves that make up irregular rhomboids. The dominant part of the upper part of the picture is a chandelier. Around the table is a swirling floor which becomes criss-cross as we look further into the room. The table meets the fireplace and on the left an irregular door at the far end of the room, with a cupboard containing line drawn glasses on the right of the fireplace and a window in the top right corner. On the left side of the room the wall is marked by what appears to be an abstract painting and on the left by a cupboard or table on which stands an abnormally large vase. The chairs have wonderful curved backs which adds to the swirling and geometric chaos in this room which contains no people.
playing with creativity 