In Jan Vermeer’s great painting, The Geographer, of 1662, we have a paradox: a wanderer’s spirit suspended in the confines of an interior.
Vermeer is forever painting light coming through windows, but in this painting, the figure (the geographer), though bent over his map-making, is gazing directly into the light. Vermeer could have painted him at an open window, standing upright, his cartographer’s compass temporarily forgotten in his hand as he gazes into the landscape as if filling his adventurer’s soul with the living air. Instead, the man’s small eyes peer outward and upward, as if from a position below, into the blank, milky light of the world on the other side of the hazy glass panes.
Vermeer tells much of his story through the position and expression of the figure. There are many small telling details, however, that contribute to the painting’s meaning and its ability to move us. Let’s look at how the eye moves through this composition.
My eye is first drawn to the open book over which hovers the geographer’s right hand; it’s the area of greatest brightness and also greatest contrast between dark and light. Next, I’m immediately drawn to the face and, following the figure’s gaze, to the windows. But the eye stops there (instead of seeing the outside), and this leads us to notice the globe stationed atop the cabinet. The subtle shadows on the right encourage our eyes to return down to the focal point of the book, where we started. The globe and the man’s head, by the way, seem suggestively similar in size, shape, color, and position, don’t you think? It’s as if Vermeer wants to emphasize the relationship between the man’s mind and his discipline.
Like Vermeer’s geographer, we are beings who crave understanding and comprehension. Science and art are two ways of knowing and making sense of the world. Yet, such is the plight of the scientist, Vermeer might seem to say – to be so fascinated by the workings of the wide and amazing world that one ends up spending much of life bent over charts and books, or in our time, operating an electron microscope, typing up papers and reports, or slouching over a laptop screen running data through simulations. Can we ever really know world of the soul?
The American poet W.S. Merwin has written about this painting in his poem, “The Mapmaker.” Vermeer’s geographer, he suggests, though removed from the world, is at an even further remove from us, who search the mapmaker’s painted world for clues and signposts toward meaning. It’s we who must chart a course from our changing position in a world that goes on moving and changing, while his world, suspended in Vermeer’s art, goes on existing just as it is, timeless and silent for all time.
The Mapmaker
Vermeer’s geographer goes on looking
out of the window at a world that he
alone sees while in the room around him
the light has not moved as the centuries
have revolved in silence behind their clouds
beyond the leaves the seasons the numbers
he has not seen them out of that window
the world he sees is there as we see him
looking out at the light there in the window
-W.S. Merwin, from Garden Time, Copper Canyon Press (2016)
If you’re interested in Vermeer and in acquiring hard to find in-depth instructions on Renaissance painting techniques, as well as fundamental understanding of composition (capturing hour viewer’s attention and keeping it moving around the painting), check out Virgil Elliot’s video Traditional Oil Painting: The Principles of Visual Reality.
Fall Color Week Kicks Off with Full House
The Adirondack Mountains.
“Painters painting together.” That’s the foundation, unusual for its low-pressure approach, of Fall Color Week, getting under way at the end of this week and stretching into October (September 29 – October 6, 2023).
“Our goal is friendship and bonding,” say the organizers. “Though we may come up with something unexpected, there is no event other than daily painting and meals – no workshops, no lectures, no pre-planned offsite events.”
Look for news from the event appearing in a future edition of Inside Art.
For more information (or to join the waiting list) check it out here.
