THE CRYSTALLINE CLARITY OF AMBIGUITY:
THE PARADOX THAT IS VERMEER
When we gaze upon any of Johannes Vermeer’s thirty-six attested paintings, we are astounded by the crystalline detail he presents, but as we look closer, slowly, thoughtfully, we realize that the detail is always veiled, hidden, mysterious.
A splendid example of this ambiguity is one of the Vermeer masterpieces that hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, “Woman holding a Balance.”
It is a luminous work, finely crafted, elegantly polished, and yet painted with that same indescribably ineffable sfumato that characterizes the masterpieces of Leonardo.
The work is filled with references that are oblique, ambiguous.
Is she weighing pearls? That would be a logical inference. But here, the pearls do not sparkle or shine as much as vibrate in their own universe.
The painting behind the woman is an exemplar of another common Vermeerian conceit: the fuzzy wall painting behind the protagonist. We might recognize it as the Final Judgment- we see Christ, angels, the Virgin Mary, and in the lower part, stylized outlines of shadowed humans falling back, stunned and blinded in the moment.
So, maybe instead of weighing pearls, the woman is weighing human souls ? Maybe she is balancing her life experiences on each tray of the scale? If so, What has she come to realize about her life?
No comments:
Post a Comment