The Vermeer Killers. Episode One: Nailing Vermeer
This is a guest post by Cornelis Gijsbrechts
If a viewer were to look at a reproduction of Vermeer’s ‘Artist in His Studio’ and notice the four nails holding up the wall-map he or she might not make that much of it. A more ruminative viewer might feel reassured that what appears to be quite a sturdy object is firmly supported. Now if the same viewer were to look at another reproduction or even the painting itself, they may be disconcerted to find only two nails supporting the map. Not only have two nails disappeared, but also their substantial shadows. A viewer may reasonably conclude that the evidence has been tampered with, but to what purpose?
It is doubly ironic that a painting which allegorises vision should be altered after the event, making it more difficult to establish what the artist intended to convey, yet at the same time this act draws attention to what hitherto may have been overlooked.
Furthermore, this act adds to the disturbing and uncanny nature of the painting as exemplified by the rear view of the painter whose face cannot be seen. It is only an idle thought or intutition at this stage, however, it appears that there may be a link between the absent face of the artist and the two absent nails and their shadows.
Four nails or two? Your indefatigable art correspondent, Gijsbrechts, is on the case.
To be continued.
Comments
| 6 December, 2008, 5:18 pm |
It would help if you could write where each ‘reproduction’ referred to is from? The date of origination would seem critical. And also, if the disappearing nails are present in the original at today?
I agree, that in painting much the most strange are those that attempt to ‘capture reality’. Oddly this painting is one with Valasquez’ “Las Meninas” and van Eyck’s “The Marriage of Jan Arnofini”; on the surface completely convincing until one begins to look and think.
| 8 December, 2008, 3:38 pm |
There are two answers to this:
1) The missing nails are a MacGuffin: a device to introduce suspense to a narrative - something which the characters in the story care a lot about, but the audience are not bothered about too much (Hitchcock).
2) The 1940 Phaidon Press edition by Thomas Bodkin contains a photogravure of ‘The Art of Painting’ supplied by Ludwig Goldscheider (obtained from the Medici society), which shows four nails, instead of the two nails depicted in reproductions before and after 1940. The question is when was this photogravure made?
Gijsbrechts is on the case.
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