Johannes Vermeer’s Woman Holding a Balance
2007; American Medical Association; Volume: 9; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1001/archfaci.9.1.72
ISSN1538-3660
Autores Tópico(s)Renaissance Literature and Culture
ResumoArchives of Facial Plastic SurgeryVol. 9, No. 1 BeautyFree AccessJohannes Vermeer’s Woman Holding a BalanceLisa Duffy-ZeballosLisa Duffy-ZeballosSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Jan 2007https://doi.org/10.1001/archfaci.9.1.72AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Johannes Vermeer, one of the most celebrated Dutch painters of the 17th century, lived and worked in the city of Delft and is sometimes referred to as a leader of the Delft school of painting. Although Delft had no formal art academy, the term school is sometimes used to describe the cadre of Delft painters that included Carl Fabritius, Pieter de Hooch, and Leonard Bramer, who favored courtly genre scenes and whose works employed optical effects in staging their compositions. Vermeer cuts an enigmatic figure in the history of Dutch painting; he was born in Delft in 1632, the son of a local silk weaver and art dealer, and he died frenzied and bankrupt in his native city in 1675. One apparent cause of Vermeer's insolvency may have stemmed from his meticulous artistic technique, which apparently prevented him from producing the large volume of works generated by other artists, like Rembrandt and Rubens, whose open style and painterly execution facilitated the production of hundreds of paintings by their workshops. Today, only about 33 paintings can be firmly ascribed to Vermeer's hand, and it is doubtful that Vermeer produced many more during his lifetime. He had one principal patron, Pieter Claesz van Ruijvan, who favored Vermeer's famous domestic genre interiors and who probably commissioned Woman Holding a Balance (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC), painted about 1664.Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Woman Holding a Balance (ca 1664). Oil on canvas. 15 7/8 × 14 in (39.7 × 35.5 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.Vermeer did not begin his artistic career as a genre painter; his early works represent his juvenile attempt to establish himself as a painter of history. Paintings like Diana and Her Companions (The Mauritshuis, The Hague, the Netherlands) and Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh) exhibit Vermeer's familiarity with the tenebrist style of the Utrecht school of painters, who fused Italian chiaroscuro effects into a uniquely Dutch milieu. Evidence that Vermeer was familiar with the paintings of the Utrecht school is found in Vermeer's late paintings Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (National Gallery, London, England) and The Concert (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Mass), which shows Dirk van Baburen's Procuress hanging on the back wall. Baburen's ribald company contrasts sharply with Vermeer's refined paintings of music makers, although profane love is the theme of all 3 works.Like other Dutch painters of this period, Vermeer frequently employed the artistic device of the picture within a picture to refer to the narrative action of the scene or provide moral or allegorical commentary on the figures' actions. Such is the case in Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance, which shows a young woman wearing a dark blue heavy fur-lined jacket over a voluminous yellow skirt and standing before a table at a window. She holds an empty set of scales in her right hand and rests her left hand on a table upon which lies a small coffer containing a pearl necklace and a gold chain, and stacks of gold coins to be weighed.A painting of the Last Judgment immediately behind the woman with the balance provides the key to an allegorical reading of the subject as a Christian metaphor. The apocalyptic image of the risen Christ separating the saved from the damned reminds the viewer of the day when the book of life will be opened and the dead will be “judged on the record of their deeds” (Revelations 20:13). The end of earthly riches is the underlying theme of 17th century vanitas paintings like Juan de Valdés Leal's famous hieroglyph of death, Finis Gloria Mundi (“End of Earthly Glory”) (La Santa Caridad, Seville, Spain), which depicts a hand descending from heaven holding a balance laden with symbols of virtue on one side and sins on the other, illustrating the precarious balance needed for the purchase of one's salvation.Likewise, the gold and pearl necklaces spilling from the jewelry casket and the piles of coins at the edge of the table remind the viewer of the temporal pleasures of luxury and wealth and of the awful judgment destined for those who love the world. This was a common theme in the popular devotional writings of Luis de Granada (1504-1588), who warned that at the second coming of Christ, “It will avail no man at this supreme tribunal to urge, ‘I was dazzled by the glitter of wealth; I was deceived by the promises of the world.’”1 Several scholars have observed that Vermeer's painting corresponds to a particularly Jesuit world view that encouraged meditation on the Last Judgment. Although raised in the Dutch Reformed Church, Vermeer became a Catholic convert on his marriage and probably attended 1 of 2 clandestine Jesuit churches in Delft.2Recently, Walter Liedtke suggested another interpretation for the painting's iconography: that it is an allegory of temperance. Noting that the scales are empty, he argues that the woman is not in the act of weighing; rather, she lays her left hand on the table to steady herself as she sets the scales to equilibrium.3 He argues that Vermeer addressed the issue of moderation in several other domestic interiors, including Girl Asleep (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY), The Glass of Wine (Staatliche Museen Preißischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany), and Young Woman With a Wineglass (Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick, Germany), that emphasized the virtue of a temperate, well-ordered life.3Despite such moralistic readings of the painting, Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance appeals to us foremost as an exquisite and intimate scene of everyday life. Vermeer employs his famous compositional formula of showing a young woman standing before a table facing a window, seen in The Letter Reader (Staatliche Kurstsammlungen, Dresden, Germany), The Milkmaid (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (Rijksmuseum), and The Water Pitcher (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Daylight filters into the room through a curtain at a high window on the left side of the composition, and the atmosphere is one of quiet reserve. Vermeer captures the play of light as it strikes the objects in the room with delicately placed impasto highlights, particularly on the figure's veil and on the pearls and gold chain. The tranquil mood of Vermeer's painting contrasts with the activity of the unidentified Mannerist painting of the Last Judgment on the back wall. Although Vermeer's painting reflects Catholic theology, he interpreted the theme in a characteristically Protestant idiom, which buried moralizing lessons within genre paintings. In the absence of the painting on the wall, one might be tempted to view Vermeer's painting literally as an entirely secular domestic scene. But by blurring the lines between genre and religious allegory, Vermeer reminds us of the need to apply moral principles to our own everyday lives.REFERENCES1. de Granada L. The Sinner's Guide. Rockford, Ill: Tan Books & Publishers; 1985:66. Google Scholar2. Wheelock A. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; 1995:370. Google Scholar3. Liedtke W. A View of Delft: Vermeer and His Contemporaries. Zwolle, the Netherlands: Waanders Printers; 2000:235. Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 9Issue 1Jan 2007 InformationCopyright 2007 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved. Applicable FARS/DFARS Restrictions Apply to Government Use.To cite this article:Lisa Duffy-Zeballos.Johannes Vermeer’s Woman Holding a Balance.Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.Jan 2007.72-73.http://doi.org/10.1001/archfaci.9.1.72Published in Volume: 9 Issue 1: January 1, 2007PDF download
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