arfirstprimo at the Fitzwilliam

Welcome back art people, here is  little catch-up on my recent activities. On 5th December I stayed at the Moller Centre, Cambridge.  I was in Cambridge to give a talk on the origins of the Renaissance to the Young Arts Award Students for the Cambridge Decorative & Fine Arts Society.  The talk itself would take place the next day on 6th December, it was also night after Martin Boyce picked up this years Turner Prize,

indeed, early Renaissance artist laid the path that would be followed by Leonardo & Michelangelo, indeed without them there would be no Turner Prize. But of course one could not visit Cambridge without going to its preminent museum and at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge I was luckily able to see the exhibition, Vermeer's Women: Secrets & Silence. 

 

As there are so few of Vermeer's paintings existing this exhibition affords us the opportunity to view some of Vermeer's contemporaries.  Many of Vermeer's contemporary painters are now not as well known, but it does not meet they not every bit as intriguing as Vermeer. In this exhibition we witness the Eavesdropper by Nicolaes Maes (1655-1693) that let's the viewer into a secret world of an affair, we are also confronted by the beautifully conceived Girl Peeling Apples by Cornelis Bisschop (1630-1674). However, the overall image reminds one of an annunciation.  But Jacobus Vrel's mysterious (c.1650-62) image of a Woman at a Window, Waving at a Girl, shows us a ghostly image of a little girl. Vrel's image dispenses with light from without to give us light from within the interior only. The result, a black window and fully lit room.

The perfect perspectival view in Cornelis de Man's (1621-1706) Interior with a woman sweeping is somewhat compromised by the clearly later addition of cat, evident by it partial fading with time to reveal the original background.  However, one of the stars of this exhibition is Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681). His exquisite handling of paint to create texture is quite sublime. Highlights by ter Borch include: Woman drinking wine and holding a letter and Woman sewing by a cradle. But of course the true stars are the Vermeer's (1632-1675) especially the image that is possibly one of his largest, The music lesson, and Vermeer's tiny but iconic Lacemaker on loan from the Louvre. The texture of the canvas and what is being sown almost becoming one.

 

One gets so few chances to experience Vermeer and his world and this exhibition not only explores Vermeer and the contemporary world of painting in Delft, but it manages to do so in a quiet, understated, and most effective way.