Vermeer: Master of Light (COMPLETE Documentary) [No Ads]

((Subtitles are

complete

but are being edited to make them more readable: punctuation, keeping sentences

complete

, etc. - September 23, 2017)) Johannes Vermeer was a painter of

light

. He lived and worked in Delft, in the heart of the Netherlands, but little else is known about this artist. The names of his teachers, the nature of his training, the period of his apprenticeship, all remain a mystery. He left no letters, sketches or drawings. We only know his genius. His paintings have intrigued and fascinated viewers for centuries. The subjects he chose to paint were those he encountered in everyday life: a girl reading a letter in the center of a sunlit room, a figure at work, a woman pouring milk, a girl in a red hat, her lips parted. and his eyes lit up with expectation looking at us.

What is it that attracts us? Is it poetry and the power of images? The use of reflected

light

? Color saturation, softness and at the same time brightness of the image? Or the feeling of timelessness? It is mystery and meaning in the celebration of ordinary tasks and daily life filled with quiet contemplation of the moment frozen in time. His intimacy and mood: a room full of internal thoughts. Or is it simply the virtuosity of an extraordinary craftsman? What makes a Vermeer a Vermeer? I think there is a greater sense of light in Vermeer's painting than in anyone else's and the light bathes like a room illuminates the figures the figures seemed to glow that some of them seem to have an OMERS light within themselves and there is this brilliant , brilliant use of light that almost always comes through a window that is on one side of the scene, when the fascinating things I noticed is that you never see the outside, you never see a tree through the window, you only see the light that come in, but is it this light that is incredible?

His use of this light plays with the various textures he wants to portray, which all have different meanings. The supreme quality of Vermeer's light is the effect of daylight. The effect of clear daylight is extraordinary. The light of day permeates the shadows of it and you see it so beautifully in the milkmaid. When you look at that corner of the room where there is a wonderful still life of some kitchen utensils, a brass pot and a wicker basket, you are seeing everything, but you know that it is in shadow and one of the most beautiful things in the world. wall and back pictures and the gradations of light were the intense light on the right side of the image and those gradations go from the most intense light to a darker light but the shadows are transparent, there is always this clarity of the shapes never they miss there's another thing that's exciting about this image it starts I have a kind of pointillism and if you look at the loaves of bread you have these solid shapes but in them here are the highlights he has broken his It is formed with these little points of light and he uses it very effectively and he uses it beautifully in the view of Delft, those ships that are in the lower right corner, those little highlights, which means that the light bounces off these little points of light. the forms and it is wonderful to contemplate the woman the balance is one of those supreme examples of Vermeer is the light of an artist that enters through the window is softly luminous the whole interior is a kind of soft light, deep and rich, but it's wonderful to see it happen wonderful to see it evolve and Vermeer gives you the feeling that the light is pouring into that space, it goes through that orange curtain, you can see how the light goes behind that curtain, it hits the wall directly, the gray of the wall and then it passes. the thickest part of the curtain and is a deep, dark shadow at that point and then when it reaches the edge of the curtain it creates a golden balloon that joins the gray of the wall and the deepest part of the shadow as it You walk into the room and then the light passes down illuminating the table, then the gold and pearls on the table get caught on the edge of the table and then your hand attracts attention as it rests on the table and you are lifted up again. to see his face, his wonderful calm and gentle face with his eyes downcast as he looks at the scales, holds it, a light in his hand draws you in and encompasses the entire scope of the painting.

Harnessing light is fundamental to Vermeer's power into which he transformed painting. The light in the most brilliant and fascinating way seduces us very quickly. Vermeer has a magical quality to his work. Beautiful, it's simple but very deceptive. He concentrates all the time. Adjust reality if you look at the art of painting as an artist. An easel appears to us from behind and he is painting a woman and she really represents the story and there is a map in the background and the foreground is so beautifully decorated with a large rug and the wonderful chandelier, all those details are stunning , but where is the right leg? of the easel, if you follow it down, you see the top and you go down and you see that the artist is sitting on a stool and his foot is forward, but there is no length of easel, so where is that leg if you look in that area? where your leg is forward and the two legs of a stool are, if the easel leg went down there it would find that whole area, so you either hide it behind those two legs of the stool or they eliminate it completely and if there is ever proof that Vermeer is not an ape of nature, he simply does not paint what he sees, he makes adjustments, his paintings are calculated with such care that you do not see the calculation, but I assure you that he has calculated their effects, he is concentrated, there is tremendous intelligence in Work your intelligence. artistic Mamiya designs his paintings so brilliantly and with so much care that every part of the painting, every drop of paint, every line, every shade of color, has a deliberate meaning, meaning, composition and meaning in power, every part of the story, whatever it may be. everything has a meaning one of the most wonderful examples is the woman in blue reading a letter, she is a unique figure who is standing in the corner of a room and holding this letter and you can see the kind of emotional intensity of her experience because exactly what she joined her arms to her sides, but Vermeer blocks that gesture in space by placing those hands right on the very strong horizontal bar that is the bottom of the map hanging on a wall behind her, so that this bar horizontal at the bottom creates this tense concentration in those hands, so the result is that you feel like nothing can move, light also enters this equation, while there are all these beautiful shadows and subtle shadow effects throughout the painting, it he casts no shadow by not casting a shadow, he somehow separates it from the time it sends. a passage of time that is felt with the shadows the movement of the shadows does not exist with it so it enhances a whole sense of permanence it is very difficult for Vermeer to separate one thing from another because they are also intertwined in the woman holding a scale, another For example, it looks like she will never move, it is largely created by the gesture of the hand holding the scale because that hand is locked in space by being juxtaposed over the vertical and horizontal elements of the frame where the little finger is. extended horizontally just holds that hand in space and then, for me, reinforces that visual juxtaposition with a perspective, if you follow the lines of perspective, it goes back to that extended finger, the perspective of the mirror table on the wall opposite.

We all see the tooth at one point, so that vanishing point reinforces the importance of that gesture and the infamy is very interesting at all times. It is clear to see how we use perspective. He places the vanishing point because the vanishing point tells us where. he wants the eye to go to an explanation of everything by making it have a really serious part of the composition, he is on the woman with the scales when I first examined that painting before cleaning, the Last Judgment frame that was behind of the woman was completely black in the X In the x-ray you could see the frame on the right side of the painting, behind the woman's head, there were two lines of light descending.

These lines of light show that there was a density there, a dense material that could have been a white LED or a yellow LED. Closer examination showed that this frame had been painted by someone other than Vermeer much later and those two gold lines were actually bright yellow had been painted a dark gray when that top paint was removed if the composition came to life because you got on. On the right side, the two golden lines that you have, on the left side, the light that comes in and the golden yellow curtain, and on the right, in the center, is the little golden piece of her dress and there are three very, very important that create the The strength of this composition with it holding the balance without the golden lines of the frame behind the composition was just failing, it just didn't have the tension and meaning that it has now and that is a very good example of how every little thing in Vermeer's Every little dot every little mark has a meaning and a purpose nothing is left to chance Vermeer's

master

piece the music lesson clearly shows that nothing is left to chance across a sunlit room a woman He plays a virginal man in elegant dress.

He watches her and listens attentively. Both figures are silent as if the music were measured and contained. This is one of Vermeer's most refined works. He carefully calculated every aspect of his composition. The figures. The musical instruments. The mirror table. The tile patches and the chairs, however realistic. presented are conceived as interlocking patterns of color and shape. Ramirez's placement of the vanishing point creates a dynamic and clear focus. He falls onto the woman's sunlit sleeve. A halo of reflected light in color emphasizes its importance. We can actually see the hole in the canvas. left by the pin that Vermeer used to construct the painting's perspective.

The power of this work arises from Vermeer's use of linear perspective, the wall receding sharply to the left, along with the pronounced orthogonals of the window frame. , brings the eye quickly to the woman who becomes the fulcrum around which the painting rotates. Vermeer further compresses the space by filling the right side of the scene with a large table covered with a tapestry, the angle of its edge which retreats quickly transports us back to the vanishing point the floor also plays an important role in the perspective construction its strong diagonal pattern takes us directly to the woman the interlocking series of rectangular shapes surrounding the woman adds visual emphasis to its importance Vermeer creates a strong vertical focus by placing the mirror directly above the virginal's lid so that the lower edge of its frame is overlapped by the upper edge of the lid by including the woman's reflection in the mirror.

Underlines its importance within painting. The location of the man and his relationship with the woman were of interest to Vermeer. Infrared analysis reveals that he was the first to paint the man further forward and leaning more towards the woman she also had a more active posture her head turned backwards in his direction Vermeer later altered the figures the woman is now directly in front of the virginal scene from behind his face is hidden from the viewer but his image in the mirror remained as originally painted he moved the man slightly placing him in a more upright position these adjustments were subtle but crucial Vermeer transformed the figures from active poses to sculptural postures emphasizing the permanence of their relationship the effect puts them in harmony with the careful ordered space Vermeer uses color to strengthen the focus the yellow white of the woman's blouse the golden color of the virginal and the matching reflected light on the back wall highlight the figures the red of the woman's skirt and Vermeer's selective use of black in the virginal mirror the clothing of the two figures and the pattern of the floor help fix our gaze in place the overall contrasting color combination, The patterns and shapes create major and minor accents focused on the theme of the painting.

Vermeer preserves the privacy of the couple by creating an intimate space through the arrangement of objects on the right, the strategic placement of the chairs and the low viola on the floor enclosed the couple in the background protecting their private communication and separating them from us the forward position of the table and the location of the painting in The back wall reinforces their intimate space by placing a chair directly between the table and the vanishing point. Vermeer interrupts the line of perspective, slowing our immediate access to the couple standing outside looking at the elegantly proportioned white jug that sits on the table and is central to the painting's composition.

Its shape echoes the curve of the gentleman's arm. and its color helps to link the foreground with the background. The purity of this form gives it an almost sacramental character that symbolically reinforces the theme of comfort and harmony provided by love. The mirror is one of Vermeer's main creative tools used the Vermeer mirror allows us to look at the woman, a carpeted table and the tiled floor of the room, the sensitivity withThe one that has depicted the reflection is notable: he repositioned it on the mirror instead of placing it on the surface, painting the shapes softer and smaller and depicting the distorted reflections along the beveled edge of the mirror.

Vermeer uses the mirror to give us another point of view of the woman who reveals her innermost thoughts by leaving the original position of the woman in the mirror looking at the man who suspends that psychological moment forever it is this poetic image in the mirror that gives us It draws emotionally to the heart of the painting. The Prime Minister manipulated the angle of the mirror for that purpose. Here we see the tilt of the mirror as he painted. But to actually see the scene reflected in the mirror, it would have to be tilted drastically by more than 30 degrees.

Vermeer manipulated reality to intensify the psychological power of painting. Understanding the potential of light is a primary aspect of Vermeer's genius. Here we see it. Vermeer selectively manipulates the light to strengthen the focus, removing shadows that should exist on the back wall to create an evenly illuminated white surface that provides a backdrop to emphasize the room as it likely would have been illuminated given the clues the painting provides. silhouettes of the figures as Vermeer drastically reduced the shadow at the top of the virginal to allow the upper wall to be softly bathed in light, he darkened the shadow at the base of the window and distorted its angle on the wall these two divergent shadows support the virginal instead, the top shadow draws the eye to the corner of the eyelid and the bottom shadow draws our eye to where the leg meets the ground.

Vermeer manipulated the shadows beneath the virginal by placing them closer to each other than they would actually be. greater substance and emphasizing the silhouetted shapes of the legs, he eliminated the shadow of the virginal body against the back wall to reinforce this effect. Vermeer completes this

master

piece by inserting his own presence by showing the easel's reflection of him on the top of the mirror. It reminds us that the artist is clearly present and in total control. He is the master of what we see. The little street is an incredible painting. It is truly the one I would most like to have at home.

It is one of those paintings that somehow brings you back. Your childhood makes you remember what it was like to be a child, to look at the other side of the road and see life going on as it had always been, you saw the woman sitting there doing something, you saw the children playing in the street, you saw the little maiden. in the back they have been there again and again you know something very comforting about this world it is a very contained world there are some streets but you the interesting thing is that you don't feel like you need to go left or right you are very happy right there you are very happy you don't want to go anywhere else since here he has somehow created a feeling of street and you don't want to walk down it just I want to stay and look at this little world that he has given you and one of the magical things, one of the The reasons why that happens is because that red shutter, that red shutter says, stop, that red shadow says you've gone far enough.

I don't have to go any further to see that the red shutter is really important in blocking and limiting the feeling of comfort in that world he has created. To the left of the door, you see that there is not enough room for the shutters on the two windows that face the on the far right and the door to allow the shutter to open fully because I needed that red there, I knew I needed that flat red against the wall to complete that composition, so there is a wonderful example of using color for compositional purposes. He is a colorist from the beginning, he is a great colorist and what changes in his color is from a warm shade of reds and yellows. to the yellow and the blue, to the cold, silvery quality of the light from him and I don't think he has separated the light from the color, it's all one piece, he can get the shine and the texture in a magical way.

Vermeer does this repainting. satin really looks like Santa crunchy you can almost hear it in a pile of carpet or in bread the crust of a loaf the color does that or the water and a view of Delft the slimy water the fabric or the color of the clouds and notice what fails in the view of Delft that sky is just incredible you know you say that Vermeer copies nature and feels those clouds he organized those clouds the clouds are not like that the clouds do not stay still for the landscape painter who has to figure out how I am going to organize them and he keeps something horizontal so that his sense of the great vault and then of the heavens and back to the horizon and he is making that color always, his color is intense, he can use one color then from door to door to another with the intensity brighter.

There's a great example in the girl with a red hat who's wearing this beautiful blue outfit and the lights instead of being a lighter blue, which is what you'd expect, a yellow that's the opposite of blue. and therefore it creates this brilliance and this is this no one else does it this is absolutely extraordinary and that painting is a brilliant display of color she is sitting in front of this wonderful rich woven tapestry woven into these shapes all of which are brilliantly placed no one has one little thing out of place, they all play a part in achieving this fabulous feeling of this moment where this girl turns towards you catching the light on her face and on her hat and it's a brilliant, brilliant piece of observation and translation of that in this painting when Being able to hold the girl with the red hat in your hands is a very special feeling and by doing it you really feel the artist at work, there is a completely different relationship that you have in that moment, little things that are difficult to Capture in the gallery, for example, Mary gives this glow to your vision with a little turquoise touch that she puts in your eye and this wonderful pink touch in your mouth.

It's little accents like that that make it come alive and have this kind of vivid quality. Vermeer's works. in very fine glazes and the blues in particular are painted very finely, he uses natural ultramarine, which is a wonderful pure pigment, he prepared that area of ​​the blue tunic with a reddish brown underpaint and that gives a certain warmth to the blue, so that when you paint it very thinly, you have this warm glow that comes into the background, so it's not just a cold blue, it has this internal WAMP that ties it to the red of the hat and the orange of the cheeks and all the humanity of the image It is transmitted through that medium and he uses his material and techniques to enhance the emotional and psychological qualities of his work.

The Girl with the Red Hat is a sensual painting, it is intimate and immediate. You contact us directly for the use of Muir. color drives the emotional power of this painting placing the figure against the muted tones of a tapestry concentrating the color in the fiery red of his hat and the exuberance of his blue tunic ramier established an ocher base for the background of the painting the tones soft lines of the tapestry emerge elegantly from that color Lionhead's finials defined the foreground and placed the figure in space quick, strong strokes suggest the basic contours and structure of the heads using a reddish brown color for the base of the Ramier covered it with deep blue to establish its shape, the brown seeps in and the combination of colors creates an extraordinary feeling of warmth.

He applied a delicate blue glaze to define the folds of the fabric. His use of finely painted glazes creates depth and the addition of ice blue reflections provides a brilliant quality. The face is set in shadow first. Vermeer used a deep orange-red opaque paint as a base for the Hat. Red is an intensely warm and active color. He enhances the immediacy of the girl's gaze. A succession of semi-transparent strokes of light red and orange create the feathery appearance of the hat. Vermeer demonstrates his sensitivity to the effects of reflected light by placing a dark violet shade on the bottom of the hat.

He subtly casts a red-orange reflection on the girl's face to accentuate the effect that red has on the viewer. He then uses green, the complementary color of red, to create shadows on the face, highlighting both colors. Vermeer paints the tie with a brilliant shine. After laying down the white, he scraped off some of the paint to create definition. The white in the center of the composition cradles the face and focuses attention on her expression. Vermeer draws on the power of light to increase the intensity of color and animate. the painting added soft and bright reflections that crystallized the shape of the finials, yellow reflections to enhance the blue of the tunic and accentuate the quality of its color, delicate strokes that finish the texture and exuberance of her hat and reflections in the earring of the nose and lips to provide the face of life its culminating touches are the placement of pink on her lips the turquoise in her eyes Vermeer's extraordinary use of color encourages a dialogue between the viewer and the girl and enhances the meaning of poetry that flows throughout his paintings Oh You Prime Minister was trying to emulate the effects he would have seen with an optical device called a camera obscura, some of those qualities of this immediacy of looking from this more momentary nature of this painting They can, and do, be partially explained by the inspiration for the camera obscura I made. he really painted with a camera obscura, he certainly didn't copy the camera obscura, but it was a way of seeing, it was very enriching the way he saw, which he would then apply, create and adapt in paintings like this camera obscura means camera obscura, his images.

They were seen as magical in the 17th century, often described as paintings of nature. Its process is simple when the camera faces an image on the outside, light rays enter the camera obscura through a convex lens on the front of the box that projects an inverted and reversed image. On the surface of the glass viewing window on the back of the camera, the image contains optical effects such as diffuse or soft reflections. This is a real black and white image of a lion head finial seen through a camera obscura. The impact of this optical effect can be clearly seen when we place it next to the painted finial of Vermeer and the Girl in the Red Hat.

Those shots are a wonderful example of what you'll see from a camera obscura. Somehow they are slightly out of focus and yet he handled that light on them in the brightest way, the lights are made by building layers of paint starting with an opaque layer, then building translucent layers on top of each other and ending with little dots of bright white light and those points of bright white light are intense and actually remind me of the pearls that you see absorbed in infamy like paintings where he does exactly the same thing where he puts this circle of translucent white paint, grayish white paint to create the roundness of the pearl that this small spot of white.

The paint in the center that creates the light is exactly the same way you paint the finials. It's quite extraordinary. I think perhaps the most magical moment is that all of Vermeer's work is in the lace maker. What a wonderful painting and you have this woman, this determined woman. that she is busy with her activity of making lace in the foreground, you have this thread spilling out of this totally fuzzy cushion. I mean, you can't tell what they are. This incredible out of focus quality of these threads is amazing and that is such a wonderful example of what one would see in a camera focused closely on an individual, you focus the image on the individual's face and the foreground then goes completely out of focus; with Vermeer there is a wonderful softness where the contours are soft, each layer flows one into the other to obtain this fabulous Feel this poetic sensation of light and movement, whether on a table, whether on a ball, whether on the face From a person, everything is very, very soft and flows from one layer to another, there are no hard edges to look at in a mirror.

Through a microscope it's an extraordinary experience because you see all this flowing, all these soft, smooth edges, you wonder if you're looking at the edge of the finger or something else when you're looking at a woman's hand, so smooth they are and she did it. this painting wet on wet now this is very simple, I would put one coat, say, over Paik paint while it was still wet, I would put another coat on top and since the underlying layer was still wet, they would blend together and soften the edges. it would just blur a little bit and there would be a flow of these edges, so if you have several layers on top of each other doing this, it creates this extraordinary sense of atmosphere in the diffusion of light, this wonderful sense of shape without having to describe every little detail and a very good example of this is the small street and Delft, the house that has this facade of a brick wall where if you look at it you think that each little brick is painted very differently, not at all when you look at it , it's a texture that gives you the feeling of all these bricks, not every little brick, so it's creating this movement across the entire surface of the painting using this wet-on-wet painting technique.

IsQuite clever, there is an illusion of texture. In Vermeer's work, the most extraordinary texture effects are probably found in the view of Delft and I think the view of Delft is really amazing because there is a view of this city seen from across the canal and from across the port and yet it seems so immediate, so real. There is something so intense about that view that it just comes into view and its color with its light, but it is actually the texture that is at the center and does many different things to create this effect in this painting, one of the most striking if Look at the roof lines, the different types of roofs, the orange tile roofs on the left for example, they have a sort of jagged character that they create by having a layer of sand mixed with white LEDs under the paint, so which is a lumpy base specific to that area.

So I very consciously wanted to create the three dimensional texture effect and then put the orange color and little reflections on top of little dots on top and when you get to the boats this wonderful sensation of light flickering from the water to the sides of the boats which makes without any three-dimensional texture but with all his handling of the paint with these various diffuse layers these little circles these diffuse reflections and then the opaque reflections. In addition to the interweaving of the thin and the thick and then the thick, it is different in different parts of the painting, but everything is to achieve a certain effect.

It's really interesting to photograph for me because everything always seems out of focus, it's one of those changes in things and even restorers have been bothered by this and this painting alone writing letters is a wonderful example where when we restore it, the arm It was actually quite precise and defined and we discovered that, in fact, the restorer had made a contour line along those arms to make defined in space the loss of all the quality of life that Vermeer is creating, which is very different to Philadelphia and Vermeer did not create hard edges, they were all soft and this repainting was clearly much later than Vermeer and having established that this painting was a fake. it came off very easily without damaging the base and there you see this typical lovely soft edge on his arm as he leans over, rather he caresses the table in the same way he caresses the letters, the letter he is writing is the most intimate painting and silent.

In fact, I think it is the calmest and most moving painting of all his paintings. As far as I'm concerned, it's part of magical nursing to create more of what he and then belittle it, it could be the feeling that there is more than there is and that happens a lot with color and he uses the colors of very selectively and you feel this wonderful yellow of his jacket, but when you look closely you see that, in fact, there is very little yellow there, it is only in those reflections that the light hits. the way he's actually using lead yellow to give that focus to the rest, it's really done with okras, it's very subtle, very discreet and this is something that he does throughout his career, it's this suggestion of shape, color suggestion, space suggestion made. with the most minimal means, emotional energy narrative suggestion suggestion, feeling of mood are just the hints of these things, then what happens is we complete them.

He leaves a lot of room for us to enter into these things and for us to be converted. part of the whole experience create it fulfill it finish it in our individual way Vermeer is a man of great dignity and we see it in his mature works in a beautiful way the servants are as dignified as the mistress of the house and the milkmaid is for me a masterpiece and it is a servant whom he represents. That is the dignity of humanity because it does not encompass everything, but it is the dignity of women. I love it and I love women, but there is something wonderful. sense of his love for women that manifests itself on every occasion none of his women are harsh none of them are angry in any way all are related to quite deadly occupations very gentle and very warm occupations that he seemed to enjoy for me one of the Most of the moving images, the most poetic images of Vermeer is a painting in Berlin of a woman putting on a necklace in that gesture of a woman who does nothing but is about to close the pearl necklace, that is something that no writer can know if you know that you can only see a The woman put on a necklace, but to have captured that moment for me is one of those beautiful things that Vermeer ever created.

It is the lives of the women he is painting. The men don't come very often, but the women read a letter. We have been writing a woman letter delivering a letter this quiet existence of women that is a big part of Vermeer's poetry what makes a Vermeer Vermeer that is a very difficult question I have been worrying about that question for about 60 years for me it is that extraordinary quality he has of inviting you in and keeping you away that an enigmatic feeling that he creates is telling you a story and yet there is almost like a veil between you and the painting, there is no immediacy between you and the painting , even if they trick you into thinking there.

There is something so personal about a Vermeer painting. It's one of those types of images that you really want to see for yourself. You don't want to be interrupted. You don't want to hear noises around you. Oh, you can't express it. In words, like when you see a great baseball player whose shapes are fabulous, which makes them so great, or there is a great cook and you have great food, which makes it so great, you can talk a little about it, but There is always something you can do. I don't put it into words, he elevates these scenes from life to something that is very, very special, how is it that our milk can simply pouring milk into a jug can produce this moment of magic on a canvas, this extraordinary sensation of light and moment in which you feel? there is so much depth, there is so much more than this simple domestic act and he elevates these images to this ethereal level that it is very difficult for us to comprehend and he really is a genius at making them seem quite magical. quite mysterious at the same time it is so universal something in that image that is significant for all humanity there are truths the underlying truth yes they are fundamental truths about human existence they are our sense of harmony of the life relationship between man and nature joy of life, the sense of possibility in such a discreet and subtle way that you simply return to it again and again and feel enriched by the experience.

What makes a Vermeer a Vermeer? Perhaps there is no single answer but rather a combination of different answers for each and every one of us. This is the very essence of what it means to see.