Jan Vermeer’s The Art of Painting

In his allegorical work, The Art of Painting, Jan Vermeer gives the map of the Netherlands a central place on the canvas. The figure of a young woman stands just before it, draped in blue and holding a trumpet and a book. She poses, taking on the role of representing History. The image of History, an event that necessarily calls for interpretation, is thus juxtaposed with the map of a history of the Netherlands. The map, which we see is like a painting, is also a version of history. It records the Netherlands as transformed by the towns, bridges and towers of human endeavor, as well as by the craft of mapmaking. This transformation is situated behind History, and she, interestingly, has her back to it, not because she disregards it, but because she has no part in what or how history is represented. Instead, she faces us and the artist.

We see now that the image is laden with both the events that the discourse of history wishes to describe and the function of description itself.

In contrast, the artist sits with his back to us, anonymous and faceless. His eyes are buried and hidden by his task. Who is this person who is recording History? One cannot discern to where his attention is directed: is it the model or the canvas—History or representing History? He is lost within the very world which he represents, simultaneously between History and recording it on his canvas.

Similarly, we, the viewers, are left suspended in a dim light. We are pushed back and away from the world being represented by a drapery that hangs between the outside world and that of the painting. We repeat the task of the painter, for we are removed from our subjects and we are now confronted with the task of interpreting them. So then, are we removed from the act of representing history as well, like the painter? Is not to look at a painting the act of interpretation of a history, its history?

Together, the woman as History with the map as historical emblem and the painter, set forth the multi-faced cycles of the image. First, the art of the painting contains within itself the impulse to map or describe, and visa-versa. Second, observation is shown to be inseparable from the act of representing, or the interpretation and the recording of history. And third, the events of history themselves are impossible to encounter or fully grasp.



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