#girl reading a letter at a open window by johannes vermeer

[diioonysus]

baroque art + women

[elarchivodelaojobrujula]

"Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, painted around 1657, reveals wonderfully the new eyes through which painters now viewed their subject. It shows a woman, ensconced in her own world, absorbed totally in reading the private words of another. There is a startling stillness about the room. Its physical features, the walls, the drapery, seem to define the boundaries of her mental world. She is alone in the room. There is an open window to the world beyond but she has eyes only for the letter in her hand. Reflected in the window is not the world beyond but her own face. The window is both a portal to the world outside and an opening to her thoughts inside, an expression both of her yearning to break the constraints of her domesticity and her total absorption in her own little world. There is an intimacy about the scene that is truly breathtaking.

(...)

In the works of Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Descartes (and of others of their time) we can see the development of the modern sense of subjectivity, and of the individual as a rational agent. Human emotions may be furnished by evolution, but the self that possesses those emotions was forged in the furnace of history. That is why Shakespeare’s work is paradoxically both universal and contingent. It is universal because, today, whether we live in Britain or in Japan, we are able to recognise in his characters the workings of our own self. It is contingent because this concept of the self was not given by nature but made in history."

Kenan Malik

[sheltiechicago]

Unguarded Moments

“Eyes are the window to the soul.” “A window of opportunity.” “You are the window through which you must see the world.” From Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (1657-1659) to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window, the act of looking out from within is steeped in literary and visual culture.

Dawn Eagleton taps into this long history with Through the Glass – a candid series of portraits. The street photographer is dedicated to recording unguarded moments; her goal is to reveal the “natural expression or state” of each subject. Throughout, Eagleton demonstrates a keen eye for colour and composition.

[screen1ne]

Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition heads to cinemas 18th April

Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition heads to cinemas 18th April. Watch the trailer and get the details here #Vermeer #GirlWithThePerarlEarring #ExhibitionOnScreen @ArtOnScreen @atomictv

VERMEER: THE GREATEST EXHIBITION Trailer The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is currently putting on the largest Vermeer exhibition in history – it will never be repeated. Tickets are now completely sold out for this once-in-a-lifetime show, making Exhibition on Screen’s VERMEER: THE GREATEST EXHIBITION the only way to see this historic exhibition – in UK cinemas 18thApril. This stunning documentary…

[matyas-ss]

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Johannes Vermeer (c. 1657) Gemäldegalerie in Dresden

[classicalcanvas]

Title: Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window

Artist: Johannes Vermeer

Date: 1657

Style: Baroque

Genre: Genre Painting

[liturgical-agenda]

Gabriël Metsu - Man Writing a Letter, c.1664 - c.1666 Johannes Vermeer - Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, 1657

Man Writing a Letter is a companion piece to Woman Reading a Letter, in which the woman has received the young man's letter and is reading it intently. Records indicate the paintings have always been owned as a pair. The paintings were owned by Hendrick Sorgh, an art collector in Amsterdam.

[bconker]

Johannes Vermeer

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. 1657-59

after 2021 Cupid restoration

[amore0429]

Johannes Vermeer，（Dutch Baroque Period painter 1632 – 1675)

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window，c. 1657–1659

Oil on canvas

83 cm × 64.5 cm

[sli-writes]

Essay: Picture vs Painting

Johannes Vermeer. Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window.  c. 1657–1659. 

For Francis Bacon, painting was “mysterious because the very substance of the paint, when used in this way (of idea and technique being inseparable), can make such a direct assault upon the nervous system; continuous because the medium is so fluid and subtle that every change that is made loses what is already there in the hope of making a fresh gain.”

Material is everything, the energy and emotions associated with the material all the more important. One of my teachers, Lorna Ferguson was so pleased with me getting paint on any and everything (much to my personal dislike at times as I valued some of the objects I had ruined to create something); for a while I could not understand the marvel, as I thought; ‘well, what other way is there to work with said substance.’ It never occurred to me, at least in the way of the artists mind, that painterly was being concerned with making the idea and technique of painting inseparable. I won’t speaking on being (an artist) - hard as it may be, but I’ve covered that in my previous article - but focus on the idea and the substance.

Michelangelo. David. c. 1501 – 1504.

Another one of my teachers, Ricky Burnett spoke of the ‘history of a painting’; which I interpreted as the realm of the invisible. I believe the object has to take up space in a way that it too exudes an energy, an idea that is made more complex when there are sentients in the space, it ultimately speaks to its power, of which is the result of its creator, involuntary or not. I have an issue when the objects is of nothingness, static and unimaginative. Minimalism is a great example of this, namely in the art of architecture, photography to painting itself. How can it be said that an object carries any sort of character if it is pristine, wherein it’s function has no interest in the material as forming part of its function and results in its being fixed and changeless. It is a result of such functionality, or rather, lack thereof that the object carries no sense of presence in that it becomes just another object in space disconnected from its surroundings, thus ultimately alienating itself from humanity.

Ricky Burnett. Troubled with Goya 3. 

Ricky Burnett. High Windows 2. 

The makings and process of the objects should in themselves be studied, understood and appreciated in their materiality, most importantly in a way that they take into account the service to humanity and its relationship with time, history and ultimately the heritage of mankind’s culture. I believe that with this approach, humanity serves the object too resulting in a relationship that is ultimately symbiotic. The concept of symbiosis is one some artists and a larger group of designers have let go of, it makes the work easier, quicker and at no real cost to produce as it cares not of what it is in service of or to whom and as a result of its innate purpose.

The realm of invisible is learning to make these connections, meaningful ones with all that is around us and we’ll begin to feel, most importantly, interpret in the way of our individual being. Because you see I believe that the process is reflected in life of the painting/object - take for instance a Vermeer who layered multiple layers on thin glazes of paint each carrying their unique emotional state of the artists or Michelangelo labouring for just over 3 years on his David sculpture). The lack of such connected process results in an art that does not appear to show signs of time or even care for it; objects lose identity as they disconnect themselves from their creator and, most importantly, the generations they are a result of, leading to a worthlessness to the object. Such worthlessness is dangerous because objects lose any sense of importance, as having nothing to say to anyone or reflect on anything, a disconnect that dismisses their desire to be preserved;  this is how a people are erased from history.  Minimalism is now a job for artificial intelligence, the insentient.

King Koi Konboro. Great Mosque of Djenné. Thirteenth century

 Donald Judd, 15 Untitled Works in Concrete, 1980-1984.

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. K6 (Kiosk No. 6). 1935.

[rozieramati]

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Johannes Vermeer (c. 1657) Gemäldegalerie in Dresden

[katjaschmitt]

In addition to the usual bucket list of destinations, I also have two art bucket lists.... One is about Michelangelo and the other is about Johannes Vermeer.

My Vermeer Bucket List

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary - National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Diana and Her Companions - Mauritshuis, The Hague

The Procuress - Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window - Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

A Girl Asleep - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Little Street - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Officer with a Laughing Girl - Frick Collection, New York

The Milkmaid - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Wine Glass - Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

The Girl with the Wineglass - Herzog Anton-Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig

View of Delft - Mauritshuis, The Hague

Girl Interrupted at Her Music - Frick Collection, New York

Woman Reading a Letter - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Music Lesson - Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace, England

Woman with a Lute - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Woman with a Pearl Necklace - Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Woman with a Water Jug - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Woman Holding a Balance - National Gallery of Art, Washington

A Lady Writing a Letter - National Gallery of Art, Washington

Girl with a Pearl Earring - Mauritshuis, The Hague

The Concert - Missing since its theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston in 1990

Portrait of a Young Woman - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Art of Painting - Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Mistress and Maid - Frick Collection, New York

Girl with a Red Hat (attribution to Vermeer has been questioned) - National Gallery of Art, Washington

The Astronomer - Louvre, Paris

The Geographer - Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main

The Lacemaker - Louvre, Paris

The Love Letter - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid - National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

The Allegory of Faith - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

The Guitar Player - Kenwood House, London, England

Lady Standing at a Virginal - National Gallery, London

Lady Seated at a Virginal - National Gallery, London

Disputed paintings:

Saint Praxedis - Private Collection, Tokyo, On loan to the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Girl with a Flute - National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals - Leiden Collection, United States

[poliwait]

Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window, 1657 or 1659. Johannes Vermeer.

Girl reading a letter at a window, Dresden, 2021 Cupid restoration.

[withinthesplendor]

Johannes Vermeer - Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window

[bionic-penis]

Pride flags colour-picked from art (3/4)

Nonbinary - Salvador Dali, "Santiago el Grande", 1957

Agender - Johannes Vermeer, "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window", 1657

Genderqueer - Emile Bernard, "The Salon", 1890

Genderfluid - Edgar Payne, "Continental Divide", Unable to find a date

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Vermeer Painting Restoration Reveals a Portrait of Cupid Hidden for Over 350 Years

“Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window” by Johannes Vermeer 1657-1659

The oil painting shows a young woman, finely dressed in yellow and black, reading a letter next to an open window. Originally, the wall behind her was blank, but a 1979 x-ray showed that there was actually something on it. Beneath the plain wall was actually a “painting” of a naked Cupid. As it was not uncommon for artists to paint over their work, scholars initially accepted that Vermeer had simply changed his mind and decided to keep the wall bare. the painting was initially attributed to other artists. But in 1880, French art critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger came upon the painting and correctly attributed it to the Dutch Master