Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

Abstract

Through extensive study of Ver­
meer's paintings, the author demon­
strates that the artist must have used
a chalk line attached to a pin at the
vanishing point in the painting to
create the central perspective in his
pictures. By studying the changes in
the design of the central perspective
throughout his oeuvre, a certain
chronology appears. This conclusion
contradicts the previously accepted
beliefs that Vermeer's interiors were
faithful portraits of actual rooms or
that the use of a camera obscura ex­
plained the realism of his interiors.

148

Johannes Ve rmeer (1632-1675) and His Use

of Perspective

J orgen Wadum

Mauritshuis

Korte Vijverberg 8

p. O. Box 536, 2501 eM Den Haag

The Netherlands

Introduction

After visiting Vermeer on 21 June 1669, the art collector Pieter Teding van

Berckhout noted in his diary that, among the examples of Vermeer's art he

had seen, the most extraordinary and curious were those showing perspective

(1). Three-dimensional interiors, depicted on two-dimensional canvases in

such a way that the eye is deceived into believing the spatial illusion, were

greatly admired by litjhebbers (connoisseurs) in the seventeenth century. The

appreciation of perspective was underlined by the fa ct that these paintings

had to be executed by artists who were sufficiently technically competent to

be able to create these effects convincingly (2). Architectural pictures or "per­

spectives" were therefore often much more expensive than other genres.

Montias documented that around 1650, the price fo r a perspective was fairly

high, at an average of25.9 guilders apiece, while landscapes sold fo r an average

of 5.6 guilders each (3). The Delft architecture painter Hendrik van Vliet (ca.

161 1-1675) could have observed that one of his perspectives, in the estate of

the art dealer Johannes de Renialme in Amsterdam at his death in 1657, was

valued at 190 guilders (4).

Montias states that despite the fact that interior scenes could also rightfully

be called perspectives, he never came across a description of one in the many

inventories he examined (5). All the more interesting then is the comment

van Berckhout made after visiting Vermeer's atelier.

When the inventory of Vermeer's estate was carried out after his premature

death in 1675, a number of books in fo lio were fo und in his back room

together with twenty-five other books of various kinds. Among the easels

and canvases in his atelier, three bundles of all sorts of prints were fo und (6).

It might be interesting to speculate what these books and prints were about,

but we shall never know. It is conceivable, however, that some of them were

guides to perspective drawing, works either by Hans Vredeman de Vries

(1526 or 1527-1606) or those published by S. Marolois (ca. 1572-1627),

Hendrik Hondius (1573-1649), and F. Desargues (1593-1662) (7, 8, 9, 10). It

can be seen in the perspective design extrapolated from his paintings that

Vermeer was certainly familiar with the principles laid out in these manuals

on perspective.

Unfortunately, nothing is known about Vermeer's apprenticeship. Therefore

one must turn to an extensive examination of his paintings in order to gain

an impression of the development of his method of rendering space.

State of research

Over the years many studies have been made of Vermeer's use of perspective

and his spatial constructions, only a few of which shall be referred to here.

Early this century, Eisler made an extensive study of Vermeer's use of space,

and he describes the complicated use of triangles, circles, squares, and diag­

onals that may have fo rmed the basis fo r Vermeer's pictures (11).

Probably inspired by Wilenski, who in 1928 wrote about some special effects

in photography, " ... perhaps one of the ironies of art history [is] that with

a Kodak any child might now produce by accident a composition that a great

Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice