Meaning in Composition
As we have seen, Vermeer creates very simple but dynamic underlying structural schemes in his paintings. They are the foundation on which he confidently builds the rest of his work. The self-contained quality of his works is expressed not only through the simple orderly furnishings and the discreet gestures of the young woman in his pictures but principally through compositions that refer constantly and almost obsessively to their own geometrical boundaries. Composition in painting has a similar function as  the soundtrack has in cinema. It builds and relieves tension, it creates a unity through a repeated theme, it directs our attention here and there and channels our emotions along the paths that the artist wishes much more powerfully than the images alone are able to do.

Intellect or Intuition ?

It is impossible to determine definitively if Vermeer calculated rationally beforehand his compositions or if he arrived at them by more intuitive means. Not even one of his drawings remain to help us. However we do know  through x-ray photographs that he made many major and minor compositional corrections during the painting process.  The following Zen story, in any case, illustrates the uncanny visual precision  that some artists posses.


A master calligrapher was commissioned to carve an inscription to be hung over the gateway entrance to a Buddhist monastery. He asked a carpenter to help him place the finished work, directing the man from below to move it a little higher or lower, to the right or left, until he found exactly the right spot. "That's the place," said the master calligrapher. The carpenter, to test the master, marked the spot and then pretended he had forgotten. "Was this the place, perhaps?" the carpenter kept asking. But so accurate was the master's sense of proportion that it was not until the carpenter reached the identical spot again that its location was approved.



Vermeer's paintings are incredibly deceptive in their apparent simplicity. His masterpieces are full of enigmas that are being slowly addressed only in recent years. In Vermeer Pages  diverse aspects of Vermeer's paintings hoping that a greater knowledge of the means he utilized will deepen our appreciation of his work and above all stimulate further thought and research.


                  

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