Vermeer's Painting Technique

Author(s): Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr.

Source: Art Journal, Vol. 41, No. 2, Edward Hopper Symposium at the Whitney Museum
of American Art (Summer, 1981), pp. 162-164
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/776468
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who are satisfied with experiencing the
world through the various media.
Many of the applications, however, make
evident the limited commitment of em-
ployers towards the professional growth
of their staff members. A museum director
may write a letter confirming that the ap-
plicant is wonderful, eligible, and free to
take time off if awarded the grant-but no
salary support will be available during the
leave. It is all too easy to blame this sorry
situation on the fiscal problems of mu-
seums. Underlying the financial argument
is a distinct devaluation of the contribu-
tion that extracurricular experiences
make to the expertise and happiness of
the professional.
The Museum Policy Panel has wrestled
with this problem for years, hoping that
at the least larger museums would take a
more generous view towards their staffs.
For fear of penalizing the applicants, no
requirements have ever been placed on
the applicant's institution, although mak-
ing continued salary support obligatory
has been discussed. These issues have
led us to develop a new grant category,
offered this year for the first time as a
pilot program: Museum Sabbaticals. This
innovation is intended as a complement
to the Fellowships for Museum Profes-
sionals, which will be continued.
We hope that this new grant program
will encourage museums to set up on-
going sabbatical systems for their staffs.
The Endowment is concerned about the
future of the field, and believes that this
program will provide museum workers
with the opportunity to continue their
growth in mid-career. Other professions
have addressed this issue, and it is impor-
tant that the museum community do so as
well.
The Endowment is not stipulating the
terms of an eligible sabbatical system.
Curatorial, educational, and administra-
tive personnel might be included. The
applying museum must make that deter-
mination and convince our review panels
as well. The museum field must begin to
take seriously the need for such programs,
even at the risk of reordering priorities in
staff assignments and budget planning.
We cannot spend our time in a field that
talks about quality and professionalism
without really trying to do something
about it.
Tom L. Freudenheim, Director,
Museum Program, NEA
162 ArtJournal
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Vermeer's Painting Technique
For an art historian, the world of a muse-
um professional has many advantages. It,
above all, allows one to study works of art
as actual objects. It provides excellent
opportunities for anyone interested in
problems of connoisseurship, conserva-
tion, and artists' techniques. Exhibitions
can often be organized around one's in-
terests. Complementing these facets of a
curator's life are the obvious satisfactions
derived from the installation or reinstal-
lation of the collection and from the ac-
quisition of works of art. The museum
also offers an excellent forum for an
exchange of views with other scholars or
the general public.
The one great disadvantage for a seri-
ous scholar working in a museum is the
fragmentation of time. Unlike most uni-
versity positions, the curator is strapped
to a nine-to-five job, five days a week, and
some weekends as well. It is virtually
impossible to sequester oneself away for
any extended period of time to pursue
research. Summer vacations are inade-
quate in length, and the daily require-
ments of museum life preclude the pos-
sibility of sustained periods of creative
thought and writing. Furthermore, muse-
ums have thus far not offered their cura-
torial staffs the type of sabbatical experi-
ence enjoyed by colleagues in universities.
For this reason I find the museum fellow-
ships offered by the National Endowment
for the Arts important and necessary.
The museum grant, as established by
the NEA, has virtually no restrictions for
the recipient. No schedule of its use is
required. All that is asked of the grantee
is to indicate whether the fellowship was
helpful for attaining his or her goals and
to suggest ways to improve the program.
NEA's approach is extremely healthy since
it fosters a feeling of trust and confidence
in one's work.
My particular project dealt with the
relation of Jan Vermeer's painting tech-
niques to his style. I had begun studying
this problem in 1974 in conjunction with
the paintings by Vermeer in the National
Gallery of Art. In the course of the research
I had gone to New York City and Boston to
examine other Vermeers. Largely on the
basis of this work, I wrote a book that
explored aspects of Vermeer's working
procedures. The subject of his techniques,
however, could not be thoroughly treated
until I had had the opportunity to study
properly all of his paintings. The NEA
grant allowed me to undertake this re-
search. I was given ten months' leave of
absence from the National Gallery and
moved with my family to the Netherlands.
The year's work was enormously re-
warding. Through the generous coopera-
tion of museums and private collectors in
the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Scot-
land, France, West Germany, and East
Germany, I was able to study effectively
every painting by Vermeer in European
collections. In most instances I was able
to view the paintings with a microscope
in a conservation laboratory. Other avail-
able technical information was supplied,
particularly x-radiographs, infrared and
ultraviolet photographs. In a number of
instances I was able to have the paintings
examined with infrared reflectography. I
kept careful records of all of the observa-
tions made during the examinations and
also accumulated an enormous archive
of slides of the paintings, particularly
details.
I approached this study with a few
basic questions. I wanted to determine as
precisely as possible the techniques Ver-
meer used to achieve his individual style.
I specifically wanted to trace the relation
between the evolution of his style and
developments in his painting techniques.
These questions involve an investigation
of Vermeer's working procedure, and I
was hence also interested in the types of
pentimenti and changes in composition.
These issues are related to the role of
optics and perspective in his work, specif-
ically that of the camera obscura. Should
Vermeer have used such an optical device
as an artistic aid, one might expect that it
would have had an impact on his painting
technique and/or style. Finally, I hoped
that thorough examinations of his works
would allow me to have a fuller under-
standing of their physical condition, to
know whether the surface qualities and
colors had been altered through abrasion
or restoration and whether the sizes had
been changed in any way. A knowledge of
these matters is essential for an under-
 standing of the relation of Vermeer's
paintings to each other. The authenticity
of some paintings has been unjustly ques-
tioned in recent years because such issues
were not thoroughly considered.
Particularly interesting in relation to
these concerns is the View of Delft in the
Mauritshuis, The Hague. This great mas-
terpiece has always been admired for the
extraordinarily realistic impression it cre-
ates. A study of Vermeer's painting tech-
niques gives some clues as to how he
achieved this effect. For example, he has
made an effort to reproduce as closely as
possible the textural quality of the red tile
roofs at the left by superimposing a thin
layer of reddish paint over a dense layer
containing large particles of lead white.
These particles protrude through the red-
lg. 1 dish layer; they both break the uniformity
of its color and suggest the rough texture
of the tile.

Some of the techniques, however, were

designed less for realistic intent than for
compositional purposes. Vermeer appar-
Fig. IJan Vermeer, ently wanted to enhance the silhouetted
View of Delft, The Hague, character of the cityscape. He accentuated
Mauritshuis. the profile of the city against the sky by
outlining the buildings with a thin stroke
Fig. 2 Reflectograph of of white paint. X-radiographs show that
a detail of Vermeer, View Vermeer modified the reflections of the
of Delft. buildings and trees in the water in a way
that is nonnaturalistic. Reflections of the
twin peaks of the towers of the Rotterdam
Gate at the right, for example, originally
were much smaller than they now are.
Vermeer, however, enlarged them far out
of proportion and extended them all the
way to the bottom of the composition.
Similar modifications were observed with
infrared reflectography which was carried
out in collaboration with J.RJ. van Asperen
de Boer. Reflectographs also indicate that
the shadows on the front of the Rotterdam
Gate were originally more pronounced
than is now evident. Presumably Vermeer
lessened the shadows to minimize the
protruding shape of the gate and to allow
it to be read as a more integral part of the
friezelike profile of the cityscape.
The successful examination of Ver-
meer's paintings with infrared reflectog-
raphy has been one of the most rewarding
and surprising aspects of this research.
(Thirteen of his paintings have thus far
been studied with this technique). In gen-
eral very little success has been achieved
with reflectography of seventeenth-century
Dutch paintings. Although actual under-
drawings are not visible in Vermeer's
paintings, he seems to have blocked in
his forms before painting them in a
manner that reflectography often reveals.
A number of important compositional
changes have been found in reflectograms
that were not visible, for example, in
Fig. 2 x-radiographs.

Summer 1981 163

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 This is true of the Woman with a
Pearl Necklace in the Gemaldegalerie,
Berlin-Dahlem. In the reflectogram an
unusual shape resembling a lute appears
in the chair situated in the foreground.
That such an object was once included
suggests not only a compositional change
but also an iconographic one. Indeed,
one finds in other Vermeer paintings the
elimination of objects that appear to have
had specific iconographic implications.
Such changes are relevant when trying to
determine the messages or meanings his
paintings were meant to convey.
The advantages of undertaking this type
of research are many, but one always
needs to be aware of the limitations.
Because Vermeer's oeuvre is small, it is
fortunately possible to see and study most
of his paintings in a reasonably short
span of time, so that observations remain
freshly in mind. Also, most of his paintings
are in major museums where a useful
dialogue can take place with conservators
and curators about the problems the
paintings present. Clearly, however, when
one undertakes such a study, awareness
steadily increases and new questions con-
tinually arise. Ideally one should return
time and again to check initial observa-
tions against those insights gained from
other paintings. In practice this type of
renewed examination is unlikely, and I
have often had to depend on slides to
recheck my initial reactions. A danger
also exists that such a concentrated study
isolates the artist and does not adequately
place him into his context. One can only
keep these restrictions in mind and hope
that in the future subsequent studies can
be undertaken.
My only criticism of the fellowship is
that the stipend was not adequate to cover
the cost of living in northern Europe for
the period of the grant. The added costs
of travel and materials (film and so forth)
were substantial. Nor are allowances
made for one's family. Thus, while the
fellowship does provide the opportunity
to travel and do research, to accept such
a grant is an expensive proposition unless
there is additional funding from one's
institution or from other sources.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., National
Gallery of Art
164 ArtJournal
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Contemporary Art in Europe, 1973
In March 1973, during my third year as
curator of contemporary art at the Dallas
Museum of Fine Arts, I was fortunate to
receive an NEA Fellowship for Museum
Professionals. My project related to my
two principal areas of interest, then as
now: early twentieth-century art, especial-
ly Constructivism, and recent develop-
ments in painting and sculpture. I pro-
posed to devote three months to visiting
museums, galleries, and artists' studios
in England, Germany, the Netherlands,
and parts of Eastern Europe. The Dallas
Museum generously augmented the NEA
grant with an additional amount in travel
funds, and my wife, two children, and I
left Dallas on 19 September 1973.
In England, our first stop, we paid a
memorable visit to Henry Moore's studio
in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. Dusk was
approaching as we reached the grounds
where Moore's recent "sheep" pieces had
been installed on mounds, fenced off, like
the live sheep grazing nearby. We saw the
often-described studio building with its
shelves of bone forms, and we visited
with the Moores in their living room,
sitting around a coffee table crowded
with ancient bronzes, bones, and Moore's
smaller pieces.
Other pleasant visits with British sculp-
tors included those to Philip King at his
studio near Whipsnade; to Nigel Hall,
whose linear wall pieces have since been
exhibited in New York and atDocumenta
in Kassel (1977); and to the Conceptual
artists Victor Burgin and John Hilliard.
Richard Long, whose installation at the
Guggenheim International in 1971 had
greatly impressed me, showed me photo-
graphs of his various pieces, both those
installed in museums and those done in the
landscape. At Pentireglaze, near Polzeath
on the Cornish coast, a National Trust
"Holiday Cottage" served as a base for
our visit to Barbara Hepworth's studio in
Saint Ives. The studio was set up like a
museum installation with pieces from every
period, and the gardens contained several
of her larger bronzes. Dame Barbara
spent some time with us in her living
quarters, discussing her past and current
work.
In Amsterdam, I was primarily inter-
ested in studying the Stedelijk Museum's
collection and in talking with the curators
who shared my interest in recent art and in
geometric abstraction and Constructivism.
Art & Project, a new space devoted to
international Conceptual art, was also part
of my Amsterdam itinerary. In The Hague I
studied the Mondrians at the Gemeente-
museum and visited Joost Baljeu, an artist
and writer who makes constructed reliefs.
The Kroller-Muller museum and sculpture
park, located in the Hoge Veluwe National
Forest near Otterlo, which is normally an
idyllic site, projected a somewhat forbid-
ding air the day I was there. Despite heavy
rain, I ventured out into the park (offi-
cially closed for the season) to see the
new sculptures, including Richard Serra's
Spin Out (forRobert Smithson) (1972-
73), installed in a natural wooded glen.
Its three black steel plates, embedded
into the hillside, looked dramatic and
ominous against the dark tree trunks and
fallen leaves. It is, I think, one of the most
successful examples of contemporary
sculpture in a natural site.
The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-West-
falen, located in the Schloss Jagerhof in
Diisseldorf, was one highlight of my Ger-
man visit. Its choice collection, with a
nucleus of ninety to one hundred works
each by Klee and Bissier, has been built
with intelligent and judicious purchases
by its scholarly director, Werner Schmal-
enbach. His emphasis was upon the qual-
ity of each example rather than upon
historical or stylistic criteria-my own
acquisition philosophy exactly. In addition
to classic works by Picasso, Braque, Gris,
Leger, Mondrian, El Lissitzky, and Schwit-
ters, the collection includes a large black-
and-white Pollock and paintings by other
Americans, among them Rothko, Rausch-
enberg, Stella, and Warhol.
While in Diisseldorf, I visited several
artists (although I was unable to arrange a
meeting with Joseph Beuys, who was then
in the midst of legal proceedings following
his dismissal from the Art Academy). My
visit with Bernd and Hilla Becher was
especially rewarding. Their house, a nine-
teenth-century factory building in Wittlaer,
a suburb of Diisseldorf, is an antecedent of
the contemporary industrial architecture
that they photograph. We talked at length