![]() Clio does function here as the muse of history per se more precisely, she is the muse of history yet to be written. This explains why the painter is shown painting Clio’s laurel wreath, a fitting symbol of eternal triumph because this plant’s leaves do not wither. He subtly corrects popular misconceptions concerning the significance of Clio, and in so doing argues convincingly that far from exalting history painting, Vermeer’s picture expresses the well-entrenched idea, readily verified in art theory books, that artists accrue to themselves everlasting fame, glory, and honor through their work. After all, why would he extol history painting as the most important category of art when he himself had stopped making history paintings over a decade earlier?Įric Jan Sluijter has offered a more compelling interpretation of The Art of Painting. That Vermeer was no longer executing history paintings belies long-standing views concerning the subject matter of this canvas. Vermeer began his own career as a history painter, but as we have learned, he abandoned this lofty artistic category altogether by 1656 in favor of making genre paintings, or scenes of everyday life. Contemporary art theorists reverenced pictures of this sort, which illustrated episodes from the Bible, mythology, or Classical and medieval history, as the most significant and intellectual type of work an artist was capable of producing. For this reason, scholars once believed that The Art of Painting embodied Vermeer’s alleged convictions concerning the artistic primacy of history painting. The model therefore represents Clio, the muse of history. Ripa describes the muse (creative spirit) of history, Clio, as "a maiden with a laurel garland, who holds a trumpet in her right hand and with the left a book." Given the thematic specificity of The Art of Painting and his later "Allegory of Faith", Vermeer must have been familiar with this text and perhaps even owned it. Painters and writers of Vermeer’s day who wished to construct allegories consulted the Iconologia a Dutch edition of this Italian work was published in 1644. Who is this model supposed to represent? Whose character does she assume with her pose? The answer to this intriguing question can be found in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (fig. The demure model depicted here is no doubt playing a role, what with her laurel wreath and her trumpet, her large book, and the voluminous and somewhat amorphous blue fabric enveloping her upper body. Lamentably, chemical changes to the paint over time have turned many of these laurel leaves blue. He is busy applying paint to a laurel wreath on his canvas, simulating the one worn by the oddly attired model in the back of the room. In contrast, Vermeer’s painter is an active one. Rembrandt used impasto quite skillfully here to make the edges of the panel glow-in effect, subtly intimating the artist’s process of creative thought. ![]() ![]() Rembrandt's artist, a possible self-portrait, gazes at an easel supporting a large panel whose surface is hidden from the viewer. This work provides an important visual precedent for the portrayal of artists in studios, a theme that first emerged in fifteenth-century depictions of Saint Luke Painting the Virgin Mary. The painter in Rembrandt’s (1606-69) Artist in His Studio (fig. This artist rests his hand on a maulstick, a tool used in the seventeenth century to provide stability when working while preventing accidental contact with the wet surface of a painting. Vermeer depicts a well-dressed painter working at his easel in a luxuriously appointed room.
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