Vermeer's Ambition.
Klincksieck| N° d'inventaire | 22898 |
| Format | 13.5 x 20 |
| Détails | 210 p., 53 ill., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2016 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782252040331 |
To a modern eye, what distinguishes Vermeer from his contemporaries, Metsu, Ter Borch or De Hooch, is the aura of mystery that emanates from his paintings. This all-too-common feeling has given rise to a vast literature, which is not always free of commonplaces. This poetic quality, singular and incontestable, is precisely the subject of this book. But it is not considered here as an ineffable dimension: as Daniel Arasse suggests, Vermeer, on the contrary, very deliberately constructed the mystery of his painting. Through a close analysis of the works, their structure and their content, the author shows how the "interior scene" becomes for Vermeer a painting of intimacy, an "inside of the inside", a reserved and inaccessible sphere at the very heart of the private world. It is this intimacy, in its impenetrable visibility, that the "Sphinx of Delft" paints. Our conception of Vermeer is thus completely renewed: we perceive that the poetics proper to his works are inseparable from his ambition as a painter. For the historian, this ambition is not unrelated to Vermeer's Catholicism, to his faith in the power of the painted image to incorporate a mysterious presence.
To a modern eye, what distinguishes Vermeer from his contemporaries, Metsu, Ter Borch or De Hooch, is the aura of mystery that emanates from his paintings. This all-too-common feeling has given rise to a vast literature, which is not always free of commonplaces. This poetic quality, singular and incontestable, is precisely the subject of this book. But it is not considered here as an ineffable dimension: as Daniel Arasse suggests, Vermeer, on the contrary, very deliberately constructed the mystery of his painting. Through a close analysis of the works, their structure and their content, the author shows how the "interior scene" becomes for Vermeer a painting of intimacy, an "inside of the inside", a reserved and inaccessible sphere at the very heart of the private world. It is this intimacy, in its impenetrable visibility, that the "Sphinx of Delft" paints. Our conception of Vermeer is thus completely renewed: we perceive that the poetics proper to his works are inseparable from his ambition as a painter. For the historian, this ambition is not unrelated to Vermeer's Catholicism, to his faith in the power of the painted image to incorporate a mysterious presence.