Vermeer: the spell of a woman

Episode of Series “Phaidon art collection”.
Written by Sir Lawrence Gowing, “Vermeer, the Spell of Woman”, is focussed on the women as the subjects driving Vermeer’s paintings. Producing only 2 paintings per year (completing 27 before his death at only 43 years of age), Vermeer’s view of the world was expressed mostly through his female subjects. He always painted the people and objects around him, the private world of the everyday. His secluded and private subjects were given tangible stages. Complex perceptions were implied in these ‘ordinary’ subjects providing the tensions evident in real life. The paradox in his work between the intimacy depicted in the subject and the equal impersonality of the subject, being the mystery behind the unknown is explored throughout the documentary. Vermeer’s need to look at the detail in his life in order to exact a truth about human nature is evidenced here. In using the camera obscura in the process of painting his subjects, Vermeer allowed himself to shift his focus and capture the light that fragments what we see, what decorates the ordinary and transports and captivates a viewer’s gaze.