“The Lacemaker”, Jan Vermeer – description of the painting

Description of the picture:

Lacemaker – Jan Vermeer. Canvas, oil. 24 x 21 cm

The Lacemaker is the smallest in size, but not at all in performance, a painting by the Dutchman Jan Vermeer. This canvas is not quite usual for his work and therefore stands out from all the artist’s works. Despite the fact that the image of Dutch needlewomen is a fairly popular plot of the time, Vermeer has his own vision of the content and process of work.

Against the background of a completely white wall, bending over weaving, a girl sits. She is wearing a yellow dress, a snow-white collar. Smooth, neatly styled hair. The face is down, but you can see its calmness and concentration at the same time. Nearby lies a book, most likely the Bible, lined with expensive fabric.

All these signs, as well as needlework itself, suggests that the girl is virtuous, modest and hardworking. It is felt that she does the work with pleasure and love. She is all absorbed in her occupation – weaving lace. In her hands are bobbins, with the help of which the famous Dutch lace, known throughout the world, was created.

It can be assumed that lace-maker is not a servant at all, but a mistress or master’s daughter. Since lace weaving was a fashionable and profitable business in the 17th century, girls and girls were taught this skill from a young age, and they could even secure a dowry with such a craft. After all, lace was valued at its weight in gold (in the literal sense of the word) and was quite equated with art, requiring the performer of imagination, perseverance and dexterity.

And the table for weaving was an expensive and not quite simple design – it was a fixture with a tabletop in the form of a triangle, which could be adjusted for easy sewing.

What is unusual about this Vermeer painting?

And the fact that the author considers the girl at work a little from the bottom up. As a result, the front, as it were, blurred edge of the picture with fuzzy threads on the tapestry tablecloth, gradually turns into a clear image of bobbins, a lying book, pillows for needles, fingers of a girl holding objects and lace itself. That is, in the Baroque era, Vermeer in the painting “The Lacemaker” applied focus and such a peculiar method used in optics as the depth of field.

Perhaps, and even, most likely, the painter used a pinhole camera, this simplest device with which you can obtain optical images of objects. But this does not detract from the talent and genius of the artist Vermeer. Indeed, thanks to his scientific approach to painting, the viewer sees a living, very realistic, as they would say now, “3D image of the subject”."