Vermeer Poetics of Painting

"Liefde baart kunst": Vermeer's poetics of painting
Author(s): Michael Zell

Source: Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 35, No. 3/4 (2011),
pp. 142-164
Published by: Stichting Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties
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142
"Liefde baart kunst": Vermeer's poetics of painting*

Michael Zell
As has long been recognized, Vermeer's insistence ring from about 1665 (fig. 2), for example, a sentient yet
upon the equivocal nature of pictorial illusionism sets ephemeral beauty simultaneously offers and withdraws
him apart from other seventeenth-century Dutch genre the illusion of her presence. As the woman emerges from
painters. Gerard ter Borch and Frans van Mieris, close darkness into light her features nonetheless remain in
contemporaries whose work profoundly shaped Ver distinct, the outline of her face merging softly with the
meer's development, embraced an aesthetic ideal that de background to create an ethereal effect, as if she were a
fined "perfect painting," as the artist and theorist Samuel vision. Calling unusual attention to the illusory status of
van Hoogstraten wrote in 1678, as "...a mirror of nature his pictorial fiction, Vermeer thus self-consciously com
making things that are not there appear to be and which plicates the paradigm of the mirror as painting's model.
deceives in a permissible, pleasurable and praiseworthy In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Ver
way."1 Van Mieris's Music lesson dated 1658 (fig. 1) is a meer's self-reflexivity was identified anachronistically
stunning performance of this ideal of mimetic artifice. with modernist sensibilities and therefore largely mis
Each detail of surface and texture is meticulously de apprehended as an early move in the direction of for
scribed on the smooth, mirror-like surface of the panel, malism and painterly abstraction.2 The most sustained
creating a glittering reflection of visual tactility. Vermeer, and perceptive investigation of the peculiar suspension
by contrast, became absorbed with the limits of mimesis. between presence and absence in Vermeer's art argu
However compelling the suggestion of embodied pres ably remains Lawrence Gowing's classic monographic
ence in Vermeer's paintings, the illusion of tangibility study of 1952. For him, Vermeer's "obliquity," as he
is at the same time subtly denied. Dispensing with con calls it, reveals and compensates for the artist's psy
ventional modeling to define forms, Vermeer focused chological fear of or detachment from the women who
increasingly on tone and light at the expense of resolution constitute the central focus of his art.3 While few today
and even of credibility. In the iconic Girl with a pearl ear would subscribe to the idea that Vermeer's work directly
* This article is based on a talk presented at the College Art is als een Spiegel van de Natuer, die de dingen, die niet en zijn,
Association Annual Conference in 2010 in a session chaired by doet schijnen te zijn, en op een geoorlofde, vermakelijke en prijs
Lynette Bosch and Larry Silver. I would like to express my grat lijke wijze bedriegt." Quoted and translated in E.J. Sluijter, Se
itude to the session organizers and audience members, including ductress ofsight: studies in Dutch art of the golden age, Zwolle 2000,
Alison Kettering, my colleagues and graduate students at Boston p. 252. As Sluijter notes, the comparison between a painting and
University, and the fellows of the Boston University Center for a mirror already appeared in Karel van Mander's Schilder-hoeck,
the Humanities, who provided invaluable feedback. My deepest Haarlem 1604. Quoting his teacher Lucas de Heere, van Mander
and warmest thanks go to Rodney Nevitt Jr., Bruce Redford praises the paintings of Jan van Eyck, whom he considers the
and Marjorie (Betsy) Wieseman for meticulously reading and founder of Netherlandish painting on fol. 20ir: "T'sijn spie
commenting on various drafts of the article. For assistance with ghels, spieghels zijnt, neen t'zijn geen Tafereelen" ("They are
translations I also thank Katie Kist and Deborah Kahn. Support mirrors, mirrors they are, nay these are not paintings").
for research and writing was generously provided by a Jeffrey 2 On the role of modernist aesthetics in the reception of
Henderson Senior Research Fellowship of the Boston Univer Vermeer's art see in particular C. Hertel, Vermeer: reception and
sity Center for the Humanities. interpretation, Cambridge 1996.
i S. van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schil 3 L. Gowing, Vermeer, Berkeley & Los Angeles 1997 (ed.
derkonst, Rotterdam 1678, p. 25: "Want een volmaekte Schildery princ. London 1952). Gowing, p. 26, ultimately finds a resolu
2 Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a pearl earring, c. 1665.
i Frans van Mieris, The music lesson, 1658. Schwerin, The Hague, Mauritshuis
Staatliches Museum (Kavaler/Art Resource, ny)
reflects his own elusive personality, we are not much of social distinction and exclusivity.5 H. Rodney Nevitt
closer to a historically grounded explanation for the Jr. perceptively links Vermeer's enigmatic treatment of
curiously paradoxical character of his distinctive style. the imagery of courtship and beautiful women to the
Zirka Z. Filipczak has recently proposed that Vermeer's tentativeness and anxiety of lovers evoked in contem
ambiguity is a "pictorial counterpoint" to early mod porary amatory texts and codified in Dutch courtship
ern theories of vision, though it remains unclear how rituals.6 Vermeer's uniquely and increasingly ambivalent
or why his art would have evolved in response to new approach to pictorial illusionism, however, has yet to be
scientific understandings of the mechanics of vision.4 defined in relation to Dutch theories of representation.
Other recent studies do offer important insights into Without this clarification, and despite myriad con
the elusiveness of Vermeer's subject matter. Bryan Jay textual and iconographic analyses of his paintings and
Wolf parallels Vermeer's work, specifically his paintings painstaking archival research into his life, Vermeer's
with epistolary themes, to the social aspirations of the art will remain a largely elusive historical phenomenon,
upper strata of the Dutch burgher class, to whose val somehow transcendent of the cultural conditions of its
ues Vermeer apparently subscribed. According to Wolf, original creation and reception. Nevitt, Lisa Vergara and
Vermeer deliberately cultivated inscrutability as a mark Arthur Wheelock Jr. have identified the most appro
tion for Vermeer's purported anxiety in the confines of the cam Simiolus 32 (2006), pp. 259-72.
era cabinet or camera obscura, where "behind the thick curtains 5 B.J. Wolf, Vermeer and the invention of seeing, Chicago &
he entered the world of ideal, undemanding relationships. There London 2001, pp. 143-88.
he could spend the hours watching the silent women move to 6 H.R. Nevitt Jr., "Vermeer on the question of love," in W.
and fro." Franits (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Vermeer, Cambridge
4 Z.Z. Filipczak, "Vermeer, elusiveness, and visual theory," 2001, pp. 89-110, esp. pp. 108-10.
MICHAEL ZELL
priate frame of reference for investigating this ambigu self-aware character of the pictorial and literary arts
ity by recognizing correspondences between Vermeer's in seventeenth-century Holland. In investigating these
works and contemporary Dutch amatory literature.7 A connections I do not mean to privilege texts over imag
vital link between Vermeer's enigmatic art and the cul es, nor to rehearse or revive polarizing debates about the
tural world it inhabited emerges, I argue, from a closer role that moralizing emblems and other forms of textual
consideration of the complementarity between his work culture played in the development of Dutch pictorial re
and early modern poetics, specifically the Petrarchan alism.9 Unquestionably, the "meaning" of Vermeer's art
thematics of the absent beloved that pervaded poetry cannot be discovered in written sources. But recogniz
and writings on art throughout the seventeenth centu ing points of convergence between Vermeer's paintings
ry.8 Vermeer's move away from historical subjects in the and early modern poetics can enrich and sharpen our
late 1650s and toward primarily elegant modern genre perception of his work's distinctiveness and agency. The
scenes, I propose, was bound up with his embrace of interactions this study identifies between Vermeer's art
features of contemporary lyrical poetry that offered him and Dutch lyrical poetry offer a discrete and historically
a paradigm for engaging the dynamic of absent presence grounded insight into his highly self-conscious artistry
that underlies and mediates mimetic representation. and broaden our understanding of the impulses that
Vermeer's imaginative adaptation of certain subjects, shaped the reflexive artifice of Dutch realism.10
forms and devices found in the Petrarchan poetry of his
time, I will show, thematizes the foundational paradox PETRARCHISM Vermeer's images of beautiful women
of representational art. Among the poetic devices that and elegant courtship relate to the Petrarchan lyrical
Vermeer embraced, as we shall see, were mirrors and tradition of the suffering poet's unrequited love for
mirroring. These metaphors and metonyms of illusion an idealized and unattainable woman." This tradition
ism are common in both contemporary art theory and dominated the contemporary literary imagination and
poetics, where they function as highly visual referents to was popularized in genre painting by Gerard ter Borch
the dialectics of representational artifice. and van Mieris, among others. As Alison Kettering
It should be emphasized at the outset that the cor has shown in a groundbreaking article, ter Borch, with
respondences I will explore between Vermeer's art and whom Vermeer was acquainted, pioneered in the 1650s
contemporary poetry are not merely indicative of paral modern genre paintings with decorous ladies who con
lel forms of visual and textual representation in Dutch form to the Petrarchan convention of aloof female ob
aesthetics. Rather, the link underscores the deeply jects of desire (fig. 3).12 Ter Borch often modeled these
7 See ibid., and L. Vergara, "Perspectives on women in the Bulletin 82 (2000), pp. 309-30; J. Unglaub, Poussin and the poetics
art of Vermeer," in W. Franits (ed.), op. cit. (note 6), pp. 54-72, ofpainting: pictorial narrative and the legacy of Tusso, Cambridge
esp. pp. 64-68, and idem, "Antiek and modern in Vermeer's Lady 2006.
writing a letter with her maid," in I. Gaskell and M. Jonker (eds.), 9 On the interpretative debates about seventeenth-century
Vermeer studies, New Haven & London 1998, pp. 235-55. Dutch realism see the essays by Eddy de Jongh, Peter Hecht,
8 The importance of early modern poetics to the develop Eric Jan Sluijter and Celeste Brusati reprinted in W. Franits
ment of Renaissance and Baroque painting has been demon (ed.), Looking at seventeenth-century Dutch art: realism reconsid
strated in a number of important studies. See in particular E. ered, Cambridge 1997.
Cropper, "On beautiful women: Parmigianino, petrarchismo, 10 For stimulating recent discussions of the self-reflexive
and the vernacular style," The Art Bulletin 58 (1976), pp. 374 nature of Dutch art see V. Stoichita, The self-aware image: an
94; idem, "The beauty of woman: problems in the rhetoric of insight into early modern meta-painting, trans. A.M. Glasheen,
Renaissance portraiture," in M.W. Ferguson, M. Quilligan, Cambridge 1997, and H. Grootenboer, The rhetoric of perspec
and N.J. Vickers (eds.), Rewriting the Renaissance: the discourses tive: realism and illusionism in seventeenth-century Dutch still-life
of sexual difference in early modern Europe, Chicago 1986, pp. painting, Chicago 2005.
I75~9°i idem, "The place of beauty in the High Renaissance and 11 Nevitt, op. cit. (note 6), esp. p. 108, discusses Vermeer's
its displacement in the history of art," in A. Vos (ed.), Place and paintings of women reading letters in the context of Dutch Pe
displacement in the Renaissance, Binghamton 1995, pp. 159-206; trarchan poems, songs and novelistic texts about the inaccessible
J. Cranston, The poetics of portraiture in the Italian Renaissance, or absent beloved.
Cambridge 2000; A. Bolland, "Desiderio and diletto: vision, 12 A. Kettering, "Ter Borch's ladies in satin," in W. Franits
touch, and the poetics of Bernini's Apollo and DaphneThe Art (ed.), op. cit. (note 9), pp. 98-115.
3 Gerard ter Borch, Lady at her toilette, c. 1660. Detroit,

Detroit Institute of Arts (The Bridgeman Art Library) 4 Johannes Vermeer, Woman reading a letter by an open window,
c. 1659. Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Erich Lessing/
idealized women on his half-sister Gesina, herself an Art Resource, ny)
amateur artist and devotee of Petrarchan poetry.13 But
in striking contrast to such dazzlinglv mimetic presenta cal features—a hallmark of Petrarch's sonnets rehearsed
tions, Vermeer puts on display the form of self-reflexiv sometimes monotonously by his seventeenth-century
ity that underwrites and animates Petrarchan lyricism. followers as they catalogue their lady's golden hair, dark
The unattainability of a beautiful and virtuous lady in eyes, rose-colored lips, etc.—also alludes to the poet's
Petrarchism is a poetic device that liberates the author's inevitably frustrated efforts to bring the whole woman
creative subjectivity and moreover thematizes the be into being through a textual recreation of her appear
loved's absent presence in the descriptive praise of her ance.'5 In explicitly signaling the equivocal nature of his
loveliness.14 The fragmentation of the woman's physi images of modern beauty, Vermeer, I suggest, gives vis
13 On Gesina ter Borch see A. Kettering, Drawings from the Renaissance, New Haven & London 1999. On Petrarch's recep
ter Borch studio estate, 2 vols., The Hague 1988, vol. 2, and idem, tion in seventeenth-century Holland see C. Ypes, Petrarca in de
"The ter Borch studio estate," Apollo 117 (1983), pp. 446-47. Nederlandse letterkunde, Amsterdam 1934, and M. Spies, Rheto
14 The classic study of the literary phenomenon of Petra ric, rhetoricians and poets, Amsterdam 1999, pp. 109-10.
chism is L. Forster, The icy fire: five studies in European Pe 15 See N.J. Vickers, "The body re-membered: Petrarchan
trarchism, Cambridge 1969. See also S. Minta, Petrarch and lyric and the strategies of description," in J.D. Lyons and S.G.
Petrarchism; the English and French traditions, Manchester 1980, Nicols Jr. (eds.), Mimesis: from mirror to method, Augustine to
and the following insightful studies: G. Braden "Beyond frustra Descartes, Hanover & London 1982, pp. 100-09, and idem,
tion: Petrarchan laurels in the seventeenth century," Studies in "Diana described: scattered woman and scattered rhyme," in
English Literature: i¡oo-igoo, 26 (1986), pp. 5-23; W. Kerrigan E. Axel (ed.), Writing and sexual difference, Chicago 1982, pp.
and G. Braden, The idea of the Renaissance, Baltimore & London 95-110.
1986, pp. 157-89; G. Braden, Petrarchan love and the continental
MICHAEL ZELL
5 Gerard ter Borch, Woman writing a letter, c. 1655.

The Hague, Mauritshuis 6 Gerard ter Borch, A lady reading a letter, c. 1655. London,
Wallace Collection. (By kind permission of the Trustees of the
ual form to the structure of absent presence with which Wallace Collection, London/Art Resource, ny)
contemporary poets and authors, following Petrarch,
meditated upon the central paradox of representational first treatment of a modern Petrarchan theme, offers an
art. His paintings of amatory themes therefore can be intimate glimpse of an elegant young woman absorbed
seen to participate in and dramatize a poetic discourse in her own thoughts, captured in a moment of privacy.17
enthralled with art as a seductive "semblance without Vermeer's sources of inspiration for the new direction
being," as the Dutch theorist and painter Philips Angel of his art would have been paintings such as ter Borch's
put it in 1642.16 delicate Woman writing a letter from about 1655 (fig. 5)
From the moment Vermeer embraced the fashion or his Lady reading a letter from the same period (fig. 6).
able Petrarchan subjects of beautiful ladies and deco X-rays of Woman reading a letter by an open window re
rous courtship as his primary focus, he announced a new veal that originally Vermeer included a large painting
concern with the dialectical relationship between pres of Cupid on the back wall, reminiscent of the painting
ence and absence in mimetic art. Woman reading a letter within-a-painting in his late Young woman standing at
by an open window from about 1659 (fig. 4), Vermeer's a virginal (fig. 7).18 But he subsequently removed this
16 Philips Angel, Löf der schilderkonst, Leiden 1642, p. 24: (National Gallery of Art) & The Hague (Royal Cabinet of Paint
"schijn, sonder sijn." Quoted and discussed in Sluijter, op. cit. ings Mauritshuis) 1995, pp. 31-45; Vergara, "Antiek," cit. (note
(note 1), p. 211. 7); I. Gaskell, Vermeer's wager: speculations on art history, theory
17 On Vermeer's modern subject matter see in particular and art museums, London 2000, esp. pp. 56—61.
A. Blankert, "Vermeer's modern themes and their tradition," in 18 Vermeer probably based his paintings of Cupid on a pic
A. Wheelock Jr. (ed.), exhib. cat .Johannes Vermeer, Washington ture that was recorded as "a cupido" in the possession of his
7 Johannes Vermeer, A young woman standing at a virginal,

c. 1670-72. London, National Gallery (© National Gallery, 8 Gerard Houckgeest, Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft, 1651.
London/Art Resource, ny) Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
explicit clue that the woman's thoughts, like those of ter of painting, Dou was famous for a meticulously craft
Borch's ladies, are focused on love. ed technique that was further refined by his pupil van
Vermeer calls attention to the artifice of this vividly Mieris, whose paintings were, as we have seen, foun
mimetic presentation of female solitude by including in dational to Vermeer's artistic development. Vermeer,
the foreground, for the first and only time, a promi however, withdraws from an unconditional illusionistic
nent curtain rod that imitates real curtains sometimes display. In other artists' works the trompe l'oeil device is
hung over pictures in the seventeenth century. These accompanied by a shadow and a feigned picture frame
curtains both protected them and enhanced their illu to reinforce the pictorial claim that the drawn curtain
sionistic effects. Contemporary Delft painters of church belongs to the physical world in front of the Active view
interiors often included such a trompe l'oeil device, as depicted within.20 Vermeer withholds explicit confirma
in Gerard Houckgeest's Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft tion of his painting's multiple levels of illusionism by
dated 1651 (fig. 8), and the Leiden genre painter Ger omitting the fictive frame and the curtain rod's shadow,
rit Dou incorporated the motif in his Self-portrait from both of which are conspicuous features of Houckgeest's
about 1650 (fig. 9).19 Founder of the fijnschilder school and Dou's panels.
widow Catharina Bolnes in 1676. See J.M. Montias, Vermeer (note i), p. 209.
and his milieu: a web of social history, Princeton 198g, pp. 220-21 20 For the painting's "complex play with credibility" see
and doc. 364. The same painting also hangs in the background Gowing, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 34-35. According to Jorgen
of Vermeer's Girl interrupted at her music in the Frick Collection, Wadum (citing Winfried Heiber), "Contours of Vermeer," in I.
New York. Gaskell and M. Jonker (eds.), op. cit. (note 7), p. 212, Vermeer
19 In 1662 Dou was praised for his stunning illusionism as included in the painting a shadow cast by a Active frame, though
"the Dutch Parrhasius" by the Leiden poet Dirk Traudenius in I have been unable to confirm this observation.
Tyd-zifter, Amsterdam 1662, p. 17. Quoted in Sluijter, op. cit.
MICHAEL ZELL
io Johannes Vermeer, The music lesson, c. 1662—65. London,

Royal Collection (hip/Art Resource, ny)
9 Gerard Dou, Self-portrait, c. 1650. Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum decorous female beauty Vermeer began to experiment
with a pictorial structure that destabilizes and reorients
Vermeer's equivocation also extends to the painting's the beholder's physical and emotional relationship with
structure. The introduction of the curtain, despite its the painted world before him.
ambiguous status, functions (like the carpeted table and Vermeer heightened the juxtaposition of opposites in
still life in the foreground) as a physical and visual bar his slightly later Music lesson, datable to about 1662-65
rier to the woman's privacy. Vermeer suggests our prox (fig. 10), to intensify the effect of being simultaneously
imity by placing her within the confines of a corner of drawn into and yet withheld from the depicted scene.23
the room, the back wall of which can appear almost par In this image of refined courtship a stylish woman, seen
allel to the picture plane, as Gowing observed.21 At the from behind, stands before a virginal as a gentleman
same time, though, as has often been noted, the physical suitor watches intently. The view into a convincingly
obstacles in the foreground contradict and attenuate the spacious and elegant interior is characteristic of Ver
sense of closeness to the woman. These obstacles initi meer's paintings of this period, and is a feature that the
ate a perpetual tension, both perceptual and emotional, aristocrat Pieter Teding van Berkhout would praise as
between near and far, closeness and distance, immediacy a marvel of perspective in 1669 after journeying twice
and remoteness.22 Thus with the theme of modern and from The Hague to Delft to visit the artist.24 But our ac
21 Gowing, op. cit. (note 3), p. 35. 23 For sensitive readings of the emotional tensions conveyed
22 On the juxtaposition of opposites in Vermeer's work see by The music lesson see Gowing, op. cit. (note 3), esp. p. 52; Ar
in particular ibid., pp. 18 and 25; E. Snow, A study ofVermeer, asse, op. cit. (note 22), pp. 34-35; and Vergara, 'Perspectives,"
Berkeley & London 1994; D. Arasse, Faith in painting, trans. T. cit. (note 7), esp. p. 66. Gowing, p. 34, writes that Vermeer
Grabar, Princeton 1994, pp. 60-61; and Nevitt, op. cit. (note places in the foreground of the picture "veritable fortifications"
6), p. 108. that act as barriers to the figural scene.
cess to this expansive room and thus to the human event in the viewer the emotional state of longing experienced
in the background is impeded in the foreground by an by the lady's suitor.28 Thus the painting, as Vergara has
exaggerated table covered by a rich oriental carpet on observed, suggests Vermeer's growing receptivity to the
which sits a glittering silver tray and a brightly illumi literary conventions of contemporary love poetry.29
nated white ceramic pitcher. Vermeer manipulates the In this highly mimetic yet complex depiction of Pe
scale of these foreground objects and accentuates their trarchan love, as in the earlier and less fully resolved
physicality with a somewhat encrusted facture reminis Woman reading a letter, Vermeer includes an excep
cent of his early technique, which differs from the more tionally candid announcement of his painting's status
smoothly applied paint he uses in other areas of the as an act of creative artifice, a contrived recreation of
canvas.25 The effect emphasizes the inanimate objects' the world. The reflection in the mirror, as has often
closeness and the couple's distance. been recognized, shows part of an object that cannot be
The mirror hanging at an angle above the woman, seen in the room: a painter's easel, the bottom of which
however, defies the logic of the painting's perspective by is clearly visible.30 The mirror, reigning metaphor and
offering a closer view of her downturned face. The reflec metonym of illusionist painting, therefore emphatically
tion also shows her face turned more toward her suitor points to and frames Vermeer's stunning artistic and
than is suggested by the view we are given of the back of perspectival performance in creating the scene, and his
her head. The man's mouth is slightly open, a detail that presence before it. It would appear that for Vermeer the
indicates speech or perhaps singing as he accompanies Petrarchan subjects of decorous female beauty and el
the lady's playing. Infrared reflectography shows that egant modern courtship, which contrast starkly with his
Vermeer initially positioned the man closer to and lean frank depiction of the sexual trafficking of a woman in
ing toward the woman, but repainted him to lessen the his early Procuress dated 1656 (fig. 11), were conceptu
couple's intimacy and introduce a degree of emotional ally related to the dialectics of painting itself.
tension.26 As Gowing recognized, the cropped painting Vermeer's insistence upon the contingency of mi
to the man's right, which depicts Pero and Cimon or metic representation in these refined images of amorous
Roman charity, the Roman tale of an imprisoned father themes, and the ambiguous structures he creates to in
condemned to die by starvation who is breastfed by his still in the beholder a sense of frustrated longing, are
devoted daughter, suggests his emotional state of utter complementary and mutually reinforcing effects. They
dependence on the woman and love.27 An inscription on cohere as a thematic unity when considered as features
the lid of the virginal reinforces the sentiment: "Music of seventeenth-century lyrical poetry and suggest Ver
is the companion of joy, balm for sorrow" ("mvsica meer's cultivation of a poetics of illusion in pictorial
letitiae co[me]s medicina dolor[vm]"). Vermeer's form. Gowing intuited in Vermeer's art "a tension of
highly unusual oscillating structure, in which elements feeling that is in essence poetic," an insight echoed by
near and far are juxtaposed incongruously, strengthens many subsequent writers in response to Vermeer's evoc
and extends the picture's Petrarchan theme by soliciting ative images of thoughtful serenity.31 But to give the
24 On Teding van Berkhout's visit to Vermeer's studio see tory drawn up at the time of her legal separation from her hus
B. Broos, "Un célebre peijntre noramé Verme[e]r'," in Whee band Reynier Bolnes in 1641. She apparently brought it with her
lock, op. cit. (note 17), pp. 49-50, and J.M. Montias, "Recent ar when she moved shortly afterwards from Gouda to Delft; see
chival research on Vermeer," in I. Gaskell and M. Jonker (eds.), Montias, op. cit. (note 18), p. 122.
op. cit. (note 7), pp. 99-100. 28 W. Liedtke, Vermeer: the complete paintings, New York
25 On Vermeer's technique for building up the textural ef 2008, p. 107, notes that the woman's misaligned reflection in
fects of foreground elements in The music lesson see A. Wheelock the mirror places Vermeer and the beholder "in a position like
Jr., Vermeer and the art of painting, New Haven & London 1995, that of the suitor" and results in the paradoxical effects of both
pp. 92-93. attraction and restraint.
26 Ibid., p. 95, and Nevitt, op. cit. (note 6), p. 92. 29 Vergara, "Perspectives," cit. (note 7), p. 66.
27 Gowing, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 52, 124. See also Vergara, 30 Gowing, op. cit. (note 3), p. 121, and Wheelock, op. cit.
"Perspectives," cit. (note 7), p. 66. Vermeer's mother-in-law (note 25), pp. 89-90. On the mirror's reflection see also Arasse,
Maria Thins probably owned the painting. A description of "A op. cit. (note 22), pp. 33-39.
painting of one who sucks the breast" is recorded in an inven 31 Gowing, op. cit. (note 3), p. 35.
MICHAEL ZELL
parallel between painting and poetry, partly to dignify

painting by association with the far more intellectually
esteemed art of poetry. In his treatise from 1678, van
Hoogstraten advises aspiring painters and collectors that
"Since Poetry and Painting follow similar paths in many
things, it is well for our Youthful Painters to follow, with
their mute brushes, the speaking pen of the poets."32
Vermeer's meditation on the subject of the beloved,
however, indicates a very specific engagement with the
Petrarchan lyric. As the dominant literary convention,
Petrarchism also permeated early modern artistic cul
ture. Sixteenth-century Italian treatises on painting had
adopted as their model treatises on love, which were
themselves shaped by Petrarchan concepts.33 Dutch the
oretical writings on art, heavily indebted to Italian mod
els, also reveal the influence of love treatises. Eric Jan
Sluijter has highlighted the eroticized and gendered lan
guage that Dutch art theorists used to describe the ideal
relationship between the painter, the beholder and the
painting.34 As Sluijter emphasizes, Karel van Mander's
Schilder-boeck of 1604, and especially Philips Angel's
Ii Johannes Vermeer, The procuress, 1656. Dresden, Löf der schilderkonst, delivered as a lecture in 1641 and
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Elke Estel/Hans-Peter Klüt/ published the following year, characterize the painter as
Art Resource, ny) a devoted lover of his work who seduces liefhebbers or art
lovers with dazzling illusionistic displays. In 1678 van
vague term 'poetic' historical precision and to shed light Hoogstraten also wrote that the most important quality
on Vermeer's highly original response to the literary and for a painter is "That he not only appear to adore art,
artistic culture of his time requires an examination of but that he is in love with representing the pleasantries
the intersection between pictorial and poetic practices in of beautiful nature."35
seventeenth-century Holland. The most fully elaborated literary discussion of the

affiliation between art and love in seventeenth-centu
PETRARCHAN POETICS AND DUTCH ART THEORY Of ry Holland is Adriaen van de Venne's poetic praise of
course, Dutch art theorists had long espoused the Re painting from 1623, one of the most familiar yet under
naissance paragone between painting and poetry, or studied Dutch writings on art.3' It also corresponds very
32 Van Hoogstraten, op. cit. (note i), p. 193: "Dewijl 00k de is." Quoted and translated in E.J. Sluijter, "Vermeer, fame, and
Poezy met de Schilderkonst in veel dingen gelijk loopt, zoo zal't female beauty: the art of painting," in I. Gaskell and M. Jonker
onze Schilderjeugt geoorloft zijn, met het stomme penseel, de (eds.), op. cit. (note 7), pp. 265-84, esp. p. 283, note 78.
spreekende penne der dichters te volgen." Quoted and translated 36 A. van de Venne, "Zeeusche mey-clacht: ofte schyn
in E. de Jongh, "Frans van Mieris: questions of understanding," kycker," in J.P. van de Venne, Zeeusche nachtegael ende des selfs
in Q. Buvelot (ed.), exhib. cat. Frans van Mieris 1635-1681, The dryderly gesang, Middelburg 1623. On the poem see E.J. Sluijter,
Hague (Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis) & Washington "Didactic and disguised meanings?" in W. Franits (ed.), op. cit.
(National Gallery of Art) 2005, pp. 217-18, note 64. (note 9), pp. 78-87, esp. p. 84; idem, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 12-13;
33 Cropper, "The beauty of woman," cit. (note 8), p. 189, and idem, op. cit. (note 35), pp. 274-77. On van de Venne see
citing L. Mendelsohn, Paragoni: Benedetto Varchi's "Due lezzio M. Royalton-Kisch, Adriaen van de Venne's album in the depart
ni" and cinquecento art theory, Ann Arbor 1982. ment of prints and drawings in the British Museum, London 1988.
34 See in particular Sluijter, op. cit. (note 1). On the Zeeusche nachtegael, which was published by Adriaen's
35 Van Hoogstraten, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 11-12: "Dat hy brother Jan Pietersz, and Adriaen's contributions, see P.J.
niet alleen schijne de konst te beminnen, maer dat hy in der daet, Meertens, Letterkundig leven in Zeeland in de zestiende en de eerste
in der aerdicheden der bevallijke natuur uit te beeiden, verlieft helft van de zeventiende eeuw, Amsterdam 1943, pp. 243-44, and
closely to Vermeer's pictorial poetics of illusion. Van de trarchan convention. In his words, "The eye is never
Venne spent his career in Middelburg and The Hague, satisfied, desire is never sated / As long as one courts
but he was born in Delft, and Dirck van Bleyswijck's art and love."40
lavish Beschrijvinge der Stadt Delft of 1667 claims him,

along with Vermeer, among the city's most illustrious girl with A pearl earring Vermeer explicitly
artists.37 Van de Venne's poem, entitled "Zeeusche mey stages his embrace of this early modern poetics of frus
clacht: ofte schyn-kycker" (Zeeland May lament: or trated desire in Girl with a pearl earring (fig. 2). In this
reflecting on my reflection), interweaves a paean to mi arresting image a beautiful young woman turns with
metic painting with the Petrarchan convention of frus searching eyes and sensuously parted lips to look over
trated love. It opens with a melancholic, lonely author her shoulder in response to the beholder's arrival. De
wandering through the countryside outside Middelburg spite the vivid illusion of the woman's presence, she also
as dawn approaches. He becomes captivated by the re appears transient, a fugitive vision of loveliness. Her fea
flection of his own face on the surface of a stream, and tures are vague, the modeling indistinct, and the outline
thus assumes the guise of a contemporary Narcissus, of her face, painted with softly modulated brushwork,
who according to Alberti was the founder of painting. merges gently with the dark background. Gently but
Taking up a lute, he sings "of amorous pain" ("van lief assuredly insisting upon the woman's illusory nature,
felicke pijn") and is comforted by the power of painting Vermeer poises her on the threshold between presence
to console with a substitute for the beloved: "What I and absence, being and dissolution, desire and distance.
presently hold dear, now beyond reach, I must and I As Edward Snow puts it, she is "caught at the edge
shall bring forth with art, / And see if I can capture my of becoming or escaping."41 Subtly acknowledging the
love sweet and good."38 Van de Venne's reflection on his limits of art's capacity to make present the object of
reflection then prompts a meditation on the dialectical desire, Vermeer parallels the beholder's longing for the
tension between presence and absence in mimetic rep depicted woman with a frustrated desire for the painting
resentation, a tension poeticized as the relation between to bring her into being.
the desiring (male) lover and the elusive (female) object Vermeer's beguiling woman in Girl with a pearl ear
of affection. Assigning to both artist and beholder the ring thus plays the part of the absent beloved for viewer
role of unrequited lover before the image of his beloved, and artist, personifying van de Venne's definition of
van de Venne defines painting as "a sweet art... That painting as "a sweet art... That creates out of nothing a
creates out of nothing a beloved sweetheart.... The eyes beloved sweetheart."42 The delicately erotic encounter
desire, man longs / And I long all the more for this rea Vermeer depicts also resonates powerfully with van de
son: / Because I see before me an image that has neither Venne's poetic description of an elusive "image that has
body nor speech / Nor movement or feeling, and is but neither body nor speech / Nor movement or feeling,
a semblance / As though it would turn its face toward and is but a semblance, as though it would turn its face
mine."39 Van de Venne analogizes the representational toward mine."43 Designating both beholder and artist as
act and its reception to the unfulfillable desire of Pe the unrequited lover from the poetic trope of the absent
K. Porteman and M. B. Smits-Veldt, Een nieuw vaderland voor (tis waer) mijn lief, door constelicke streken, / Maer evenwel de
de muzen: geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1560-1700, spraeck die salder aen gebreken; / Nochtans ic ben genoucht,
Amsterdam 2009, pp. 316-18. The volume was reprinted three mijn oog heeft wil en wens, / Begeerich is de oog, verlangend'
times in the seventeenth century (Rotterdam 1632, Amsterdam is de mens: / n't Verlangen is in my te meer om dese reden, /
1633 and Amsterdam 1651). Om dat ick sie een beelt dat lijf en heeft noch reden, / Beweging
37 D. van Bleyswijck, Beschryvinge der Stadt Delft, Delft noch gevoel, en evenwel een schijn, / Als of het sijn gesicht ging
1667, pp. 857-58. drayen tegen 'tmijn." Translation adapted from Sluijter, op. cit.
38 Van de Venne, op. cit. (note 36), p. 59: "Het geen ick nu (note i), pp. 12-13, an(' idem, op. cit. (note 35), pp. 274-77.
bemin, althans niet can berecken, / Dat moet ic, en ic salt, door 40 Ibid., p. 60: "De oog is noyt vervult, 't gewens is noyt
cunst te voor-schijn trecken, / En sien of ick mijn lief can treffen versaet. / Soo lang men met de cunst en min-sucht omme-gaet."
soet en goet." Translation by Katie Kist. Translation from Sluijter, op. cit. (note 1), p. 13.
39 Ibid., "Van sulcken soeten const, soo nut en vol gerief, 41 Snow, op. cit. (note 22), p. 14.
/ Dat door haer wert gemaect van niet een soete lief. / Ick sie 42 Van de Venne, op. cit. (note 36), p. 59.
MICHAEL ZELL
recapitulates the Petrarchan poet's fixation on the una

vailability of his object of desire.
The woman, enacting the dynamic relation between
presence and absence that Vermeer and van de Venne
articulated through the conventionalized language of
Petrarchan love, thus serves as a metonym for painting
itself. As a picture type, the canvas probably descends
ultimately from Venetian Renaissance half-length im
ages of idealized and eroticized women, exemplified
by Palma Vecchio's Young woman with a fan in a blue
dress from about 1520 (fig. 12). Such half-lengths are
themselves poeticized expressions of ideal female beau
ty.44 The woman's turban may evoke the timelessness
of her figurative status and the allegorical picture type
itself. Drawing from this pictorial tradition, Vermeer
creatively adapted the ideal encapsulated in the Dutch
motto "Liefde baart kunst," or "Love gives birth to art."
This conceit, which privileged ardent desire or love for
art over financial and ambitious motivations, was in
voked regularly by seventeenth-century Dutch artists
and writers.4' As Joanna Woodall has argued, Dutch
burghers and artists enthusiastically embraced the topos
to articulate a social distinction that was formerly the
12 Palma Vecchio, Young woman with a fan in a blue dress, preserve of the hereditary aristocracy.46 Ivan Gaskell
c. 1520. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (Erich Lessing/ has demonstrated that Vermeer also interpreted "Liefde
Art Resource, ny) baart kunst" as a refined modern genre scene in A young
woman standing at a virginal (fig. 7), a late work that dis
beloved, Vermeer's painting, like van de Venne's poem, plays the artist's increasingly abstracted, tonal approach
thematizes the condition of unfulfillable desire, a central to painting.47 In this image, as in Girl with a pearl ear
feature of the Petrarchan tradition. Inviting a triangula ring, a woman turns to the beholder with an address
tion between painting, beholder and maker, he visually whose amorous nature is clearly indicated by the framed
43 Ibid. evance of the motto to Vermeer's work see Arasse, op. cit. (note
44 On the poeticized image of female beauty in Italian Re 22), pp. 34-39; Vergara, "Antiek," cit. (note 7), pp. 243-45; and
naissance art see Cropper, "On beautiful women," cit. (note 8); Gaskell, op. cit. (note 17), esp. pp. 63-74. Van Hoogstraten
idem, "The beauty of woman" cit. (note 8); and idem, "The identified the love of art as the painter's highest goal in his trea
place of beauty," cit. (note 8). For Venetian paintings of fe tise of 1678; see van Hoogstraten, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 345-51.
male beauties see in particular S. Ferino-Pagden, "Pictures of He also depicted the conceit on the outside of his perspective
women—pictures of love," in D.A. Brown et al., exhib. cat. box in the National Gallery, London, where an artist is seen at
Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian paint his easel painting a portrait of Urania/nature while receiving
ing, Washington (National Gallery of Art) & Vienna (Kunsthis inspiration from a winged putto. The words 'Amoris causa' are
torisches Museum) 2006, pp. 190-99. Vermeer's painting has inscribed in an accompanying cartouche. On van Hoogstraten's
also been linked to ironies by Michael Sweerts. See Wheelock, privileging of love over the other motivations for art see also
op. cit. (note 17), and Liedtke, op. cit. (note 28), p. 132. Woodall, op. cit., p. 214. On the general theme of love in seven
45 For the motto's ancient roots and its importance in seven teenth-century Dutch art see H.R. Nevitt Jr., Art and the culture
teenth-century Dutch art and art theory see E. de Jongh, exhib. of love in seventeenth-century Holland, Cambridge 2003.
cat. Portretten van echt en trouw, Haarlem (Frans Hals Museum) 46 Woodall, op. cit. (note 45). Woodall also suggests that
1986, pp. 57-59, 274-78, and J. Woodall, "Love is in the air: the ideal of Amor as motivation played an important role in
Amor as motivation and message in seventeenth-century Nether the production of Dutch genre scenes of domesticity, courtship,
landish painting," Art History 19 (1996), pp. 208-46. For the rel festivity and commerce.
picture of Cupid directly behind her. In locking gazes Eddy de Jongh's important article on Lady World from
with her, as with the figure in the Mauritshuis canvas, 1971 demonstrated the persistence and pervasiveness
we become involved in an intimate exchange that ac of this moralizing tradition in Dutch art of the seven
tivates the seductions of painting as well. The lady's teenth century.48 Sluijter built on de Jongh's work by
solicitation of the viewer, perhaps to enter into a duet arguing that sixteenth and seventeenth-century Dutch
similar to the scene depicted in his earlier Music lesson representations of women with mirrors, particularly
(fig. 10), aligns desiring subject and desired object in nudes, can signify the sense of sight and its visual pleas
musical harmony. ures—though he nonetheless regarded such images as
essentially inseparable from the vanitas tradition from
THE MIRROR: a DEVICE OF PETRARCHAN LOVE The which they descended.49
distinctive Girl with a pearl earring epitomizes most Mirrors feature in several Vermeer canvases be
vividly Vermeer's preoccupation with the Petrarchan sides The music lesson (fig. 10), including Girl asleep
poetics of frustrated desire. But this conventionalized at a table, The milkmaid, Woman holding a balance and
language of love also elucidates dimensions of meaning Young woman with a pearl necklace. The reflection of a
in Vermeer's other, more typical portrayals of female woman's face cast on a window, as seen in the Dresden
beauty and refined courtship. Rather than considering Woman reading a letter by an open window (fig. 4), can
a broad range of correspondences between Vermeer's also perform double duty as a mirroring device. The
paintings and Petrarchan amatory literature, however, I motif commands our attention, however, in only two
wish to concentrate on a single, highly revealing feature: of these pictures (figs. 10, 13). I will return shortly to
the mirror, a recurring motif in seventeenth-century the large mirror that forms a focal point of The music
Dutch art and Vermeer's work that provides a crucial lesson, but first let us consider the Young woman with
point of entry for exploring further his engagement with a pearl necklace from c. 1662-65 (fig. 13), in which a
the poetic structure of the absent beloved. Mirrors per mirror also plays a leading role. Here an elegant young
form key roles in several of Vermeer's canvases and, as woman pauses before a mirror, delicately tying the rib
we have seen, operate metaphorically as allusions to the bons of a pearl necklace as she presumably puts the fin
mimetic claims of representational painting. The mir ishing touches to her toilette. The painting has been
ror is also a central motif of Petrarchan poetry, where it seen as a vanitas allegory, and is reminiscent of explicitly
serves, as in pictorial art, as an allusive and self-reflexive moralizing works such as van Mieris's Young woman
device. The relationship between Vermeer's art and this before a mirror of c. 1662 (fig. 14), where the figure's
literary motif thus clarifies further his creative adapta low décolletage and the presence of a fawning servant
tion of poetic and pictorial conventions to draw atten doubtless allude to female pride and the transience of
tion to the dialectics of mimetic artifice. earthly beauty.50 But even de Jongh hesitated to apply
With a privileged status as reigning metaphor of rep a moralizing reading to Vermeer's painting, and sub
resentational illusionism in Dutch art-theoretical texts, sequent scholars have increasingly and rightly rejected
mirrors not surprisingly are frequently encountered narrowly didactic interpretations of his art.51 The lyri
in seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings. When cal tenor evoked by Young woman with a pearl necklace,
juxtaposed with the figure of a beautiful woman, as is its effects of serenity, beauty and decorousness, seem
common, they can invoke associations with the ven fundamentally inconsistent with such readings, as are all
erable allegorical theme of vanitas or superbia (pride). of Vermeer's mature paintings. It is still possible, how
47 Gaskell, op. cit. (note 17), esp. pp. 63-74. op. cit. (note 17), pp. 153-55, compares van Mieris's picture
48 E. de Jongh, "The changing face of Lady World," in with Vermeer's.
idem, Questions of meaning: theme and motif in Dutch seventeenth 51 E. de Jongh, "Pearls of virtue and pearls of vice," Simiolus
century painting, Leiden 2000, pp. 59-82. 8 (1975/76), pp. 83-84. For rebuttals of moralizing interpreta
49 Sluijter, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 116-17. tions of the picture see in particular Snow, op. cit. (note 22), pp.
50 See J. Walsh Jr., "Vermeer," in The Metropolitan Museum 152-56, Wheelock, op. cit. (note 17), pp. 153-55, and Liedtke,
of Art Bulletin 31 (Summer 1973), unpag., and L. J. Slatkes, op. cit. (note 28), pp. 116-17.
Vermeer and his contemporaries, New York 1981, p. 53. Wheelock,
MICHAEL ZELL
13 Johannes Vermeer, Young woman with a pearl

necklace, c. 1662-65. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Gemäldegalerie (Jörg P. Anders/Art Resource, ny)
14 Frans van Mieris, Young woman before a mirror, c. 1662.
ever, to accommodate the vanitas theme to Vermeer's Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie (Jörg P.
image without doing violence to the picture's lyricism. Anders/Art Resource, ny)
For in seventeenth-century lyrical poetry the mirror had
acquired several overlapping and interdependent mean such as the one seen in The art of painting from about
ings that wove together its traditional moralizing impli the same date (fig. 15), albeit smaller. Radiographs also
cations with the more modern and fashionable subject show that Vermeer included a foreshortened musical in
of Petrarchan love. In sophisticated literary representa strument—a lute or a cittern—on the angled chair in
tions of women and desire the mirror motif had resisted the right foreground.52 With their connotations of Lady
the narrowly misogynist valences of the past. World and sensual pleasure, these elements may have
Vermeer's own ambition to reconcile the didactic linked the painting too explicitly with a moralizing con
and poetic conventions for depicting ladies with mirrors tent. To account for Vermeer's evident abandonment
seems to be revealed in the changes he introduced to the of the conventional didacticism of such scenes in order
design of Young woman with a pearl necklace. He ini to create this serene image, Arthur Wheelock proposed
tially included two motifs that resonated closely with the an interpretation drawn from emblematic and other lit
theme of female vanity, but subsequently painted them erature, in which mirrors are metaphorically associated
out in an apparent effort to defuse negative associations. with self-knowledge and truth and the woman's pearls
Neutron autoradiographs show that originally the com with "faith, purity, and virginity."53 But Walter Liedtke
position was dominated by a large map on the back wall, questions such recondite and complicated readings of
52 Wheelock, op. cit. (note 17), p. 154. both Prudence and Truth. Otto Vaenius's emblem 4, "Clear and
53 Ibid. As Wheelock notes, Cesare Ripa's Iconología, trans. pure," in his Amorum emblemata, Antwerp 1608, analogizes the
D.P. Pers, Amsterdam 1644, identifies mirrors as attributes of mirror's reflection to truth and love. See de Jongh, op. cit. (note
in Petrarch's sonnet "II mío adversario" from the Rime

sparse (sonnet 45), where he briefly offers himself as a
substitute for Laura's mirror.55 Admonishing Laura's
self-absorption in the mirror, Petrarch bitterly laments
his displacement in her affections by the transient and
ultimately deceptive image it reflects. In the wave of
Petrarchism that swept throughout western Europe be
ginning in the sixteenth century, poets elaborated re
peatedly on the conceit, embracing the mirror as a rival
for the lady's affections and enlisting it as a foil for the
truer image of the beloved inscribed within the poet's
heart and immortalized in his poetic verse. The process
began in Italy, where Serafino dall'Aquila composed 12
strambotti (poems often set to music) on the mirror, one
of which captures particularly well the poet's plea to his
beloved to turn away from the transient and false image
of the mirror and discover her perfected reflection in his
loving gaze.
A false mirror, that day and night you tire

In looking at yourself, makes you distorted;
But it does not tell you the truth, and that is:
He is sweet to you, and you are disdainful and hard.
15 Johannes Vermeer, The art of painting, c. 1665-66. Vienna, Do you want to see how much beauty you cling to,
Kunsthistorisches Museum (Erich Lessing/Art Resource, ny) Whether you are cruel or pious, misleading or dark?
Now let go of the mirror and look at my eyes,
Vermeer's picture. According to him, these conceits For in me you will know that which you are.56
are remote from Vermeer's pictorial concerns as well
as from his "sympathetic, almost loving" rendering of By the mid-sixteenth century the Petrarchan trope of
the woman.54 A consideration of the early modern poet the mirror as an adversary had emerged in northern Eu
ics of love, however, elucidates a discrete tradition that ropean lyrical poetry. In Délie, objet de plus haulte vertu
absorbs and recasts the mirror's vanitas associations and of 1544, the French Petrarchan Maurice Scéve devel
confers on the motif a self-reflexivity in keeping with oped Serafino's mirror theme, pleading with his beloved
Vermeer's self-conscious approach to mimetic represen Délie that in the mirror she sees only "her movements,
tation. her color and her form," whereas in his heart she will
By Vermeer's time the mirror had become an estab find her living virtue.57 The most vital example of this
lished topos in amatory poetry, a tradition that originated Petrarchan topos may be Edmund Spenser's sonnet from
51), on the pearl's positive and negative symbolic associations in may not be worthy to dwell where you alone are. / But if I had
Dutch literary and pictorial traditions. been nailed there firmly, a mirror should have made you, be
54 Liedtke, op. cit. (note 28), p. 116. cause you pleased yourself, harsh and proud to my harm. / Cer
55 Kerrigan and Braden, op. cit. (note 14), p. 174, and Cran tainly, if you remember Narcissus, this and that course lead to
ston, op. cit. (note 8), pp. 158-59. For the poem see R.M. Dur one goal—although the grass is unworthy of so lovely a flower."
ling (ed.), Petrarch's lyric poems: the Rime sparse and other lyrics, 56 Cranston, op. cit. (note 8), pp. 159-60, with the transla
Cambridge (Mass.) & London 1976, pp. 110-11: "My adversary tion on p. 160. For the original Italian see B. Bauer-Formiconi
in whom you are wont to see your eyes, which Love and Heaven (ed.), Die Strambotti des Serafino dall'Aquila, Munich 1967, p.
honor, enamors you with beauties not his but sweet and happy 204.
beyond mortal guise. / By his counsel, Lady, you have driven 57 Quoted in J. Vianey, Le pétrarchimse en France au xvie
me out of my sweet dwelling: miserable exile! Even though I siecle, Montpellier & Paris 1909, p. 67. See M. Scéve, Délie,
MICHAEL ZELL
his Amoretti of 1595. In highly pictorial language, the The fires may burn thee from this mirror rise,
tormented lover here implores his lady to avert her eyes By the reflected beams of thine own eyes;
from the mirror and find her physical and spiritual per And thus at last, fall'n with thyself in love,
fections—Spenser calls them her "celestial hue"—mir Thou wilt my rival, thine own martyr, prove.
rored most faithfully in his devoted heart. But if thou dost desire thy form to view,
Look in my heart, where Love thy picture drew,
Leave, lady, in your glass of crystal clean, And then, if pleas'd with thine own shape thou be,
Your goodly self for evermore to view: Learn how to love thyself in loving me.59
And in my self, my inward self I mean,
Most lively like behold your semblant true. The same Petrarchan conception of the mirror as the
Within my heart, though hardly it can shew lover's adversary makes an appearance in seventeenth
Thing so divine to view of earthly eye, century Dutch amatory literature, which evolved in dia
The fair idea of your celestial hue, logue with French Renaissance poetry, particularly that
And every part remains immortally: of Clément Marot and the Pléaide poet Pierre de Ron
And were it not that through your cruelty, sard. Dutch writers adapted the idea of the mirror as the
With sorrow dimmed and deformed it were: poet's rival from Marot, who enjoyed widespread rec
The goodly image of your visnomy, ognition in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Holland
Clearer then crystal would therein appear. as both a religious and a lyrical poet, and whose works
But if your self in me ye plain will see, were often translated and emulated as models for mod
Remove the cause by which your fair beams darkened ernizing Netherlandish poetry.60 Van Mander's teacher
be.58 Lucas d'Heere translated 22 of Marot's poems in Den
hof en boomgaerd der poesien of 1565, and the collection
The tradition continued to thrive well into the sev De Nederduytschen Helicon, published in Haarlem in
enteenth century. In 1647 Thomas Stanley published 1610, initially at van Mander's instigation, includes a
the poem "To Chariessa, beholding herself in a glass," Dutch translation of Marot's Temple de Cupido, as well
where the conventional vanitas meaning of the mirror is as translations of Petrarch derived from Marot's rendi
once again deployed to comment on the true portrait of tions of the Italian's poetry and translations of sonnets
the beloved born from the poet's love. Even more than by the French Petrarchans Ronsard and Philippe Des
Spenser's, Stanley's poetic language is deeply pictorial. portes.61 In 1614 Roemer Visscher translated and imi
tated 21 epigrams and 5 elegies by Marot in his volume
Cast, Chariessa, cast that glass away; Brabbeling.fa
Nor in its crystal face thine own survey. Among Marot's writings included in Visscher's Brab
What can be free from Love's imperious laws, beling is an elegy that mobilizes the Petrarchan topos of
When painted shadows real flames can cause? the mirror as the poet's rival. The poem must have en
objet de plus haulte vertu, Lyon 1554, poem 229, and E. Good national de Cahors en Quercy, Paris 1997, pp. 799-813, esp. pp.
man-Soellner, "Poetic interpretations of the 'lady at her toilette' 800-04.
theme in sixteenth-century painting," The Sixteenth-Century 61 Ibid., pp. 800-03. On the Nederduytschen Helicon and its
Journal 14 (1983), pp. 426-42, esp. p. 430, note 15. French literary sources see in particular W. Vermeer, "Den Ne
58 Quoted in Kerrigan and Braden, op. cit. (note 14), p. 174. derduytschen Helicon," in E.K. Grootes (ed.), Haarlems Helicon:
See Edmund Spenser, Amoretti and Epithalamion: written not literatuur en toneel te Haarlem vóór 1800, Hilversum 1993, pp.
long since by Edmunde Spenser, London 1595, sonnet 45. 77-92.
59 See G.E.B. Saintsbury (ed.), Minor poets of the Caroline 62 Smith, op. cit. (note 60), p. 803, and N. van der Laan,
period, 3 vols., Oxford 1905, vol. 1, pp. 102-03, cited in Kerrigan Uit Roemer Visscher's "Brabbeling," 2 vols., Utrecht 1918-23,
and Braden, op. cit. (note 14), p. 247, note 20. vol. i, pp. xxxii-vii. The Hague schoolteacher David Beck also
60 See P.J. Smith, "Clément Marot aux Pays-Bas: presence recorded several times in his journal of 1624 that he both read
de Marot dans les bibliothéques privées des Hollandais au xvne and imitated the poetry of Clement Marot (Smith, p. 810); see
siécle," in G. Defaux and M. Simonin (eds.), Clément Marot, D. Beck, Spiegel van mijn leven: Haags dagboek 1624, ed. S.E.
"prince des poetes Francois" I4g6-igg6: actes du collogue inter Veldhuijzen, Hilversum 1993.
joyed considerable popularity in Holland, as it also ap They would find imprinted there,
pears, though without the author's name, in an album of Your admirable face.
love poetry, songs and emblems entitled Thronus Cupidi Similar with your beauty,
nis, which was first published by Crispijn van de Passe You would see my loyalty.
the Elder in 1617 and was expanded and remodeled by This is the only happiness I desire
Willem Jansz Blaeu in 1618 and reprinted in 1620. The That in the end I do not wish
expanded 1618 and 1620 editions contain 3 sonnets and For anything more than that which brings you joy.64
no fewer than 15 songs by Ronsard in addition to con
tributions by Gerbrand Bredero, Joost van den Vondel Following the lead of French, English and Italian poetic
and Daniel Heinsius.63 Marot's elegy, which is printed traditions, Dutch poetics thus absorbed and refashioned
in Thronus Cupidinus in both the French original and the vanitas convention of female self-involvement to un
Visscher's Dutch translation, invokes the Petrarchan derscore poetry's capacity to represent ideal physical and
conceit of the mirror as an inadequate reflection of the moral beauty. The mirror's associations with female van
beloved lady's perfect beauty, which is only truly re ity now coexisted with an affirmation of the poet's ability
flected in the adoring and loyal heart of the suffering to capture his beloved's true image through a devotion to
poet. art. This poetic exaltation of a woman's perfections over
the mirror's superficial likeness is a far more appropri
In place of torment and trouble ate frame of reference than didacticism for appreciating
Which your love gives me day and night, Vermeer's modern and poeticized image of a woman gaz
I implore you to take ing at her own reflection (fig. 13).65 The painting's lyri
The crystal Mirror that I send you.... cal character and compositional structure correlate well
It is true and you can be sure, with the poetic trope, and the conceit's self-reflexivity is
That there is no mirror, which will be, or ever was, deeply consistent with Vermeer's distinctive handling
That can show perfectly of mimetic artifice. In closely cropping the composition,
Your living beauty: But surely believe, Vermeer welcomes the beholder into an intimate glimpse
If your eyes clearer than this crystal, of a moment in the lady's self-adornment, and he even
Would see my loyal and not malevolent heart, seems to invite us to take a seat next to her in the empty
63 On the Thronus Cupidinis see H. de la Fontaine Verwey, weynich te meer beminnen." For Marot's original see Clément
"The 'Thronus Cupidinis'," Quaerendo 8 (1978), pp. 29-44, anc' Marot: oeuvres poétiques completes, ed. G. Defaux, 2 vols., Paris
the same author's introduction to Thronus Cupidinis: verzameling 1990-93, vol. i, pp. 263-65: "Combien ardente est l'amoureuse
van emblemata en gedickten, Amsterdam 1968. On Anthony van flamme, / Que mon las cueur pour voz vertus enflamme. / Au
Dyck's possible adaptation of one of the book's illustrations in a moins en lieu des tourmens, et ennuys, / Que vostre amour me
drawing see W. Franits, "Anthony van Dyck and the 'Thronus donne jours, et nuycts, / Je vous supply de prendre (pour tous
Cupidinis'," Master Drawings 31 (1993), pp. 279-83. mectz) / Ung crystallin Myroir, que vous transmectz. / En le
64 Thronus Cupidinis, Amsterdam 1620, unpag. (I 6 a): prenant, grand joye m'adviendra, / Car (comme croy) de moy
"Maer in de plaets van alle hertseer en torment, / Dat my alle vous souviendra, / Quand lá dedans mirerez ceste face, / Qui
daeghs door u Liefde comt omtrent, / Bid ick dat ghy in danck de beaulté toutes aultres efface. / II est bien vray, et tiens pour
wilt aenvaerden, / Een Cristallen spieghel die ick zend uwer seureté, / Qu'il n'est Myroir, ne sera, n'a esté, / Qui sceust au
waerden, / Die nemende zult ghy my maken bly: / Want ick vif monstrer parfaictement / Vostre beaulté: mais croyez seure
meen, dat ghy wel zult dencken om my, / Als ghy u zelven ment, / Si voz yeux clers plus que ce Crystallin, / Veissent mon
daer in zult beschouwen, / Die in schoonheyt paßeert alle ander cueur feal, & non maling, / Ilz trouveroient lá dedans imprimée,
Vrouwen. / Het is wel waer, en ick weet voor ghewis, / Datter / Au naturel vostre face estimée. / Semblablement avec vos
noyt Spieghel was, comen zal, noch is, / Die u nae't leven zoo tre beaulté, / Vous y verriez la mienne loyaulté, / Et la voy
conde toonen juyst / V schoonheyt, maer ghelooft voor vuyst, ant, vostre gentil courage / Pourroit m'aymer quelcque poinct
/ Waert dat u ooghen veel claerder als Cristael, / Zaghen mijn d'avantage." My thanks to Deborah Kahn for assistance with the
herte ghetrou en zonder fael, / Zy zouden daer in ghedruct translation.
vinden te wezen, / Nae't leven u schoonheyt, die zeer wordt 65 De Jongh, op. cit. (note 51), p. 84, tentatively linked Ver
gheprezen: / En aen u schoonheyt zouden zy zien gheknocht, meer's Young woman with a pearl necklace (fig. 13) to Dutch
/ Mijn ghetrouwen dienst t'uwaert, zo ghy hebt verzocht, / Petrarchan love poetry, noting that pearls are sometimes equated
Ende dat ziende zoo mochten u edel sinnen, / My daerom een with the beloved's beauty.
MICHAEL ZEL L
chair positioned prominently in the foreground.66 Yet

despite this open solicitation, our access is blocked by the
voluminous cloth heaped up over the table's left corner.
This barrier activates a characteristic tension between
proximity and distance, immediacy and evasiveness,
availability and inaccessibility. This tension of opposites
is heightened by Vermeer's use of soft, indistinct mode
ling to evoke simultaneously the woman's tangibility and
elusiveness. Embracing the Petrarchan poetics of frus
trated desire to thematize the paradox of absent presence,
Vermeer thus reworked the subject of female vamtas to
create, as Liedtke writes, "a picture of beauty such as no
artist or collector had ever seen."6'
It is also likely that a specific pictorial type related
intimately to Petrarchan lyricism informs Vermeer's
Young woman with a pearl necklace. Not only does the
Berlin canvas revise Dutch conventions of Lady World
and vanitas in accordance with Petrarchan poetic con
ceits, it also parallels Italian and especially French
Renaissance pictures juxtaposing a beautiful woman
at her toilette with a mirror. Elise Goodman-Soellner
has shown that these paintings, celebrated examples of
which are by Giovanni Bellini, Titian and painters of
the School of Fontainebleau, originated in dialogue with
sixteenth-century poetry of the Petrarchan tradition.68
The Fontainebleau type, exemplified by the Dijon pic 16 School of Fontainebleau, Woman at her toilette, c. 1560.
ture of c. 1560 (fig. 16), is closely allied with French Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts (Reunion des Musées Nationaux
Petrarchan poetry, particularly by Maurice Scéve men / Art Resource, ny)
tioned above, in which the reflective capacity of the mir
ror is compared unfavorably to the perfect image of the of 1552 details the stages of his lady's transformation
adored Délie reflected in the poet's heart.69 Goodman into an earthly goddess ("Déesse") of beauty and virtue
Soellner argues convincingly that these pictures embody as the poet watches, envious of the intimacy she shares
the theme of the lady's levée popularized by the Plé with her comb ("jaloux du bon-heur de ton peigne").70
aide poets, including Ronsard, whose jQuand au matin Emulations of this fashionable Pléaide praise of the be
66 Wolf, op. cit. (note 5), p. 180. Nevitt, op. cit. (note 6), p. invokes the poetic topos of the greater "luminosity of female
99, suggests that the empty chair in the foreground of A young beauty over candlelight."
woman standing at a virginal (fig. 7) is intended for the male 69 On the Fontainebleau type's relation to the mirror motif
viewer, while Vergara, "Antiek," cit. (note 7), p. 243, identifies in French poetry see M. Guillaume et al., exhib. cat. La dame a
the empty seat in Lady writing a letter with her maid (National sa toilette, Dijon (Musée des Beaux Arts) 1988, pp. 20-27, anc'
Gallery of Ireland) as reserved for Vermeer himself. Goodman-Soellner, op. cit. (note 57), p. 434. For the various
67 Liedtke, op. cit. (note 28), p. 116. versions of the type see H. Zerner, Renaissance art in France:
68 Goodman-Soellner, op. cit. (note 57), pp. 426-42. In a the invention of classicism, Paris 2003, esp. pp. 213-16, and S.
study of eighteenth-century French toilette scenes, E. Good Beguin, "Dame á sa toilette," in A. Chastel et al., exhib. cat.
man-Soellner, "Nicolas Lancret's 'Le miroir ardent': an em L'Ecole de Fontainebleau, Paris (Grand Palais) 1972, pp. 215-19,
blematic image of love," Simiolus 13 (1983), pp. 218-24, esP nrs. 243-45.
p. 222, relates ter Borch's Lady at her toilette of about 1657 70 Goodman-Soellner, op. cit. (note 57), p. 432, and idem,
(London, Wallace Collection) to Petrarchan poetic conventions. "Boucher's 'Madame de Pompadour at her toilette,"' Simiolus
As she argues, the presence of the unlit candle in the painting 17 (1987), pp. 41-58, esp. pp. 42-45. See also P. de Ronsard,
loved at her ablutions can also be found in seventeenth
century Dutch poetry, most famously in an anonymous

sequence of 12 sonnets in the anthology and songbook
Apollo, of gesangh der musen published by Dirck Pie
tersz, known as Pers, in 1615.71 In the cycle's first sonnet
the poet-lover describes his jealousy of the lucky comb
("Gheluckigh is de kam") with which his beloved ca
resses her golden braids.72 It is perhaps not coincidental
that a comb, a poetic prop signaling the displacement of
desire, lies conspicuously at the corner of the table in
Young woman with a pearl necklace .73
Let us now revisit the prominent and unusual mirror
in The music lesson (fig. 10), which presents a special case
of Vermeer's embrace of the motif. As Daniel Arasse
has noted, the mirror's reflection of part of Vermeer's 17 Pieter Cornelisz Hooft, "Sy blinckt en doet al blincken,"
easel announces the picture's exceptionally self-refer emblem n in Emblemata amatoria, Amsterdam 1611.
ential status as a meta-painting, a representation about The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek
representation.74 Calling attention to the conditions of
the painting's creation in the mirror's reflective image, in Dutch emblematic literature of love. Arthur Whee
Vermeer clearly mobilizes and comments on the cen lock has observed that the combination of a mirror with
tral metaphor of pictorial illusionism. And in connecting an elegant courtship scene in Vermeer's painting finds a
this self-referential passage with the subject of modern parallel in Pieter Cornelisz Hooft's emblem "Sy blinckt
love, as we have seen, he acknowledges and visualizes en doet al blincken" ("She shines and makes everything
the relationship between Petrarchan poetics and the shine") illustrating his Emblemata amatoria of 1611 (em
dialectics of mimetic representation. More specifically, blem 11, fig. 17).75 As in Vermeer's composition, Hooft's
Vermeer's activation of the mirror in this scene of deco emblematic image juxtaposes a prominent mirror with
rous courtship also engages the Petrarchan topos of the the vignette of a gentleman watching a lady playing a
mirror as the poet-lover's rival. keyboard. In the emblem Cupid holds the mirror to re
While The music lesson, like Young woman with a pearl flect the sun's rays, directing its heat to his bow lying in
necklace (fig. 13), relates generally to the lyrical tradition the foreground. As Hooft expounds in an accompany
that emphasized the superiority of the poetic image of ing Dutch verse, "My lady shines and illuminates oth
the beloved over her mirror reflection, a closer link be ers with her brightness / It can only be the reflection
tween the painting and this poetic conceit can be traced of her glow if anything good is shining in me."76 For
Amours, ed. H. and C. Weber, Paris 1963, p. 380, sonnet 14: Het schoone van natuur passeert doch alle const."
"Plus que mes yeux j'aime tes beaux cheveux, / Liens d'Amour 73 Vermeer's series of paintings from the mid-i66os depict
que l'or mesme accompaigne, / Et suis jaloux du bon-heur de ing elegant women at their toilettes, famously dubbed the "pearl
ton peigne, /Qui au matin desmesle leurs beaux neuds." pictures" by Gowing, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 42-45, seem to evoke
71 Apollo, of gesangh der musen, ed. A. Keersmaekers and K. these fashionable poetic and pictorial conventions to varying de
Bostoen, Deventer 1985. See also Porteman and Smits-Veldt, grees.
op. cit. (note 36), pp. 197-98. Contrary to some suggestions, the 74 Arasse, op. cit. (note 22), pp. 33-35. On the meta-paint
sonnets were apparently not written by Bredero. ing in early modern art see Stoichita, op. cit. (note 10).
72 Apollo, cit. (note 71), p. 73: "Vroegh in den dageraet / de 75 Wheelock, op. cit. (note 17), p. 130, and idem, op. cit.
schoone gaet ontbinden / Den gouden blonden tros / citroenich (note 25), p. 87. See further Vergara, "Perspectives," cit. (note
van coleur.... / Haar Goddelijck aanschijn / op dat sy dese keur 7), pp. 65-66. Nevitt, op. cit. (note 6), p. 98, parallels another
Behielt / van daghelijcx haer daer te laten vinden. Gheluckigh emblem from Hooft's Emblemata amatoria, which shows Cupid
is de kam / verguldt van Elpenbeen / Die dese vlechten streelt fishing, with one of the small tiles seen in A young woman stand
/ dit waardich sijnd' alleen; / Gheluckigher het snoer, dat in ing at a virginal (fig. 7).
haar dicke tuyten. Mijn ziele mee verbint / en om 't hooft gaet 76 P.C. Hooft, Emblemata amatoria, ed. K. Porteman, Lei
besluyten. / Hoewel ick't liever zie wilt-golvich nasijn jonst / den 1983, p. 98. "Mijn Vrouwe blinckt/ en set haer claerheyt
MICHAEL ZELL
Hooft, then, the mirror's capacity to reflect the radiance

of the sun is a metaphor for ideal love, which reflects the
physical and spiritual beauty of the poet's beloved. Lisa
Vergara has also suggested that Vermeer positioned the
mirror directly above the lady as a comparable "mirror -MBLEMATA AfBEELDINCHEN
of love," which alludes to the suitor's state of depend SfcAMATORIA. VAnMiNNE.
ence on her.77 But Liedtke doubts the significance of this ""^EmBLEMES D'AMOVR.
erudite, "bookish" source for The music lesson, noting
also what he regards as the emblem's incompatibility
with the easel reflected in the painting's mirror.78 As
will be shown below, however, Hooft's emblem derives
from the same Petrarchan trope of the mirror sketched
above, and thus not only relates to but also sheds light
Cf'c/ruclr t' ^Amlierdan- ty CWiHc- Iamzocn
on Vermeer's distinctive and self-conscious picture of
elegant modern love. 18 Pieter Cornelisz Hooft, frontispiece to Emblemata amatoria,
Before clarifying the relevance of Hooft's image to Amsterdam 1611. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek
Vermeer's painting it is important to recognize the lit
erary character of love emblematics, a phenomenon of emblematic images and painting in the volume's elabo
immense importance to Dutch literature and art of the rate frontispiece, where courting couples are assembled
seventeenth century. Hooft's Emblemata amatoria, like around an altar dedicated to Venus (fig. 18). The goddess
other emblem books devoted to love, was in fact a major of love reclines above the group holding a burning heart
vehicle through which Petrarchism was popularized in in her hand, and is accompanied by her son Cupid, who
seventeenth-century Holland.79 The first series of love rides a swan. Two personifications stand on pedestals to
poems illustrated with emblems was Maurice Scéve's either side. At the right Pictura puts the finishing touches
Délie of 1544, mentioned above, which contains mottoes on the recumbent Venus, indicating painting's inspira
often derived from Petrarch's sonnets and related gen tion in the love and passions that the goddess inspires.
erally to the conventionalized language of Petrarchan, To the left stands Poetry, crowned with traditional lau
frustrated love. Daniel Heinsius's jQuaeris quid sit Amor?, rels and holding a caduceus to signify eloquence. Venus
first published around 1601 and reprinted as Emblemata reappears with a flaming heart in her hand in the carv
amatoria in 1607-08, the first emblem book written in ing on the base of Pictura's pedestal, while on Poetry's
Dutch, was inspired by Scéve's work, as was Otto Vae pedestal Apollo and Daphne are seen at the moment of
nius's Amorum emblemata of 1608. Both texts served as the nymph's transformation into a laurel tree. With these
models for Hooft's emblem book. As Karel Porteman two scenes Hooft reiterates the shared ideals of poetry
has detailed, moreover, Hooft's love poetry and the Em and painting by identifying the origin of both arts in the
blemata amatoria are replete with Petrarchan imagery passions and frustrations of love.81
and themes, which he adapted primarily from sixteenth Now that we have investigated the Petrarchism per
century French literature as well as from Petrarch's own vading the Emblemata amatoria we can reconsider the
writings.80 Dutch love emblematics and amatory litera parallel Wheelock identified between one of Hooft's em
ture were therefore both shaped profoundly by the Pe blematic images and the courtship scene in Vermeer's
trarchan tradition of the frustrated lover. Music lesson. The emblem "She shines and makes every
It is also noteworthy that Hooft himself made explicit thing shine" (fig. 17) is visually and thematically linked
the partnership between the Petrarchan themes of his to other emblems featuring mirrors in Hooft's book.
and're by; / 'Tis weerschijn van haer glans/ licht'er yet goedts 79 Forster, op. cit. (note 14), p. 53. See also Kettering, op.
in my." Translated in Vergara, "Perspectives," cit. (note 7), p. cit. (note 12), p. 105.
65 80 See Hooft, op. cit. (note 76), pp. 16-29.
77 Vergara, "Perspectives," cit. (note 7), pp. 65-66. 81 For the frontispiece see ibid., pp. 36-40, and Sluijter, op.
78 Liedtke, op. cit. (note 28), p. 106. cit. (note 1), p. 134.
"Liefde baart kunst": Vermeer's poetics of painting 161
Deur valfch. IN TIME FALLAX i u mijn Licht. Acceptam fero lucem
Ic recoi de mamie, vigucur el vie.
ig Pieter Cornelisz Hooft, "Deur valsch," emblem 20 in 20 Pieter Cornelisz Hooft, "Van u mijn licht," emblem 24 in
Emblemala amatoria, Amsterdam 1611. The Hague, Koninklijke Emblemata amatoria, Amsterdam 1611. The Hague, Koninklijke
Bibliotheek Bibliotheek
One entitled "Deur valsch" ("Thoroughly false," em gesture of speech. In the foreground Cupid points in the
blem 20, fig. 19) depicts a couple seated on the ground direction of the sun, which illuminates part of the moon.
with the woman sitting provocatively on the man's lap The accompanying mottoes and verses reiterate the mir
and holding a mirror. Behind the couple stands Cupid ror's role as a metaphor for the ideal love of the poet for
peering through a mask, signifying love's deceits. The his beloved, identified in the French verse as a Petrarch
multilingual mottoes surrounding the illustration warn an "belle guerriere" (beautiful warrior): "The sun gilds
of the "Fundamentally deceptive" image cast on the the moon with a silver face: / So do I borrow from you,
surface of the mirror. In an accompanying poem Hooft my love, my light"; "The Icy moon receives pure color
laments: "My lady is the mirror / I seemed to have a from her brother / So also my mistress's color is alive
place there / But upon examination I find no trace."82 on my face"; "As Phoebe (the Moon) receives its light
Thus in contrast to "She shines and makes everything from the Sun, so do I receive strength from my beauti
shine," this emblem deploys the mirror's traditionally ful warrior."84 In each instance the sun's illumination
misogynist associations with vanitas and women's de metaphorically represents the poet's state of emotional
ceitfulness. In Petrarchan fashion, though, Hooft enlists dependence on his beloved, whose radiance is reflected
that meaning to articulate the poet-lover's displacement in the ideal love she arouses. In transferring the mirror
in his lady's affections by the mirror's deceptiveness. from the woman to the man, Hooft also expresses visu
In the emblem "Van u mijn Licht" ("From you, my ally the Petrarchan theme of the poet's plea to his lady to
light," emblem 24, fig. 20), a variant of "She shines and discover her true image reflected not in the mirror but in
makes everything shine,"83 the same couple from the let his ardent devotion.
ter image reappears but has reversed the roles assigned Mirrors in the Emblemata amatoria therefore serve
to the sexes in "Thoroughly false." The man now holds as metaphors for love's inspirational power as well as
the mirror, turning toward the woman with an animated its deceitfulness. In assigning these contradictory mean
82 Hooft, op. cit. (note 76), p. 116: "Madame est le Miroir. 83 Ibid., p. 186.
I'y semblois avoir place; Mais á bien y sonder i'en trouve nulle 84 Ibid., p. 124: "De Son verguldt de Maen haer silv'ren
trace." The Dutch and Latin poems express similar conceits: "O aenghezicht: Dus houd' ick oock te leen, van u mijn Lief, mijn
valsche Spieghel diep schijn ick in u the staen; Maer sietmen, licht;" "Purum a fratre capit glacialis Luna colorem. Ac Domi
tastmen wel, het isser ver van daen," and "O fallax Speculum, nae color est vivus in ore meo;" "Comme Phoebe regoit du Soleil
tibi visus inesse profundo, Specto repercussus meque, meumque sa lumiere, Ainsi fay-ie & vigueur de ma belle guerriere." See
locum." See http://emblems.let.uu.nl/h161120.html. http://emblems.let.uu.nl/h161124.html.
MICHAEL ZELL
Imaginem elm mcumgefta.
2i Daniel Heinsius, "Imaginem eius mecum gesto," emblem 22 Daniel Heinsius, "Imaginem eius mecum gesto," emblem
5 in Ambacht van Cupido, Leiden 1613. Leiden, University 5 in Ambacht van Cupido, Amsterdam 1616. The Hague,
Library Koninklijke Bibliotheek
ings, Hooft had absorbed the Petrarchan convention Petrarch had introduced in his Rime when he proposed
of exploiting antitheses and paradoxes to articulate the taking the place of the mirror that had absorbed the at
emotional turmoil of unrequited love. Taken as a group, tention of his beloved but indifferent Laura.85
the three emblems featuring mirrors (figs. 17, 19-20) A love emblem in Daniel Heinsius's slightly later
in effect rehearse the Petrarchan topos of the mirror Ambacht van Cupido (emblem 5, fig. 21), first published
as a rival for the beloved's affections. Unfolding vir in 1613, also draws directly on this Petarchan trope,
tually sequentially, the series begins with the emblem and moreover assimilates it to the concerns of picto
"She shines and makes everything shine," which ex rial representation. Heinsius's emblem, entitled "I carry
alts the woman's capacity to captivate the poet, an ef her picture with me," pictures Cupid seated at an easel
fect analogized to the sun reflecting off the surface of outdoors busily painting a portrait of an elegant lady
a mirror. The requisite antithesis is provided by the whose absence from the scene is explained in the ac
next emblem in the cycle, "Thoroughly false," where companying Dutch verse: "The image I follow is etched
the superficial image reflected in a mirror is equated in my heart / ... / That face... remains always in my
with love's deceptions and the duplicity of women. The heart, and stays painted there, / From the time that
final mirror emblem, "From you, my light," completes I first saw her / ... / If I want to portray her truly / I
and resolves the sequence. Switching the mirror from draw her true painting from my heart."86 The French
the woman's hands in "Thoroughly false" to the man's subscriptio elaborates with reference to a rivalry with ar
in this emblem, the Petrarchan Hooft valorizes the poet tistic precedents: "I do not want to borrow the brush of
lover's ability to generate a truer portrait of his beloved's Apelles / Nor the artistic burin of a renowned engraver:
perfections than the superficial image reflected in the /To paint the charms that your face conceals, / I draw
mirror. In the image the man offers himself as a sub your portrait from the depth of my heart."87 In the same
stitute for the lady's mirror, visualizing the conceit that emblem in the revised and expanded 1616 edition of
85 See note 55. mijn sin, en is daer gebleven / Geschildert, van den tijdt, dat
86 Daniel Heinsius, Ambacht van Cupido, Leiden 1613, see ick haer eerstmael sach. / Ick draech het vvaer ick gae: en als ick
http://emblems.let.uu.nl/he1613005.html. The title is in Latin: vvil gaen smaecken / Een gans volmaeckte vreucht, soo denck
"Imaginem eius mecum gesto". Heinsius's Dutch sonnet reads: ick wat zy doet. / Dan sie ick haer voor my. maer ais ick haer
"Het beelt van die iclf volg is in mijn hert geschreven: / Dat vvil raecken, / Haer rechte schildery treck ick uyt mijn gemoet."
vvesen, dat gesicht, dien toovenaer dien lach, / Staet altijdt in 87 Ibid., "Je ne veux emprunter ny le pinceau d'Apelle, /
Ambacht van Cupido, Heinsius relocates Cupid to an art Just as Hooft's title page conjoins the aims of poetry and
ist's studio (fig. 22), thereby reinforcing the message of painting in expressing the desires and torments of Pe
the alliance between poetry and painting as sister arts of trarchan love, then, Vermeer's image of the gentleman
Petrarchan ideals. suitor's state of dependence on the inaccessible woman
The connection between Vermeer's Music lesson (fig. articulates the interdependence between painting and
10) and Hooft's emblem "She shines and makes every the most sophisticated and fashionable love poetry of his
thing shine" now comes into sharper focus. By display time. Moreover, paralleling Hooft's lyrics, which were
ing the mirror in the context of refined courtship, both often set to music (the Emblemata amatoria includes 26
Hooft and Vermeer activate the Petrarchan topos that songs), Vermeer conveys the Petrarchan thematics of
privileges the poet's/artist's image of the beloved over the absent beloved as a musical gathering or interlude.89
the mirror's inadequate reflection of her physical and As the meticulously painted inscription on the lid of the
spiritual beauties. Vermeer signals us in the direction of virginal reminds us, "Music is the companion of joy,
this poetic conceit by pointedly showing the lady's reflec balm for sorrow."
tion as an ideal created by his own devotion to art, not
merely a mimetic transcription or mirroring of observed THE ART OF PAINTING AND THE LOVE OF ART The
reality.88 Despite the scene's compelling naturalism, the model for Vermeer's and contemporary poets' figura
reflected easel identifies the woman's image as Vermeer's tions of the absent beloved can ultimately be traced to
artistic performance, which the mirror's merely reflec the literary prototype of Laura, Petrarch's own object
tive capacities cannot match. The subtly but distinctly of unrequited love. Laura was a very well-known figure
misaligned reflection of the woman's head underlines this in seventeenth-century Holland, and Constantijn Huy
self-reflexivity, even as it suggests the desires underlying gens, the celebrated Dutch statesman, poet, musician
the couple's decorous demeanors. Vermeer's allusion to and connoisseur, eagerly sought copies of Simone Mar
the mirror trope works together with The music lesson's tini's putative portrait of her.90 Whether or not Laura
distinctive compositional structure, which as we have ever existed, her name itself—referring to the laurels
seen imparts a sense of yearning, to assimilate the Petrar that honor poetic achievement—signifies the beloved's
chan tradition of lyrical poetry to the motto of "Liefde symbolic status as a vehicle through which the suffering
baart kunst," or "Love gives birth to art." poet, in conjuring her vivid presence, achieves eternal
Staging the motto as a delicately anxious courtship fame and thus immortality.91 The specific association of
scene, Vermeer absorbs and recasts the personification Laura with the laurels of poetic accomplishment was also
of painting as an unattainable woman in seventeenth understood by Dutch cultural elites. In 1656 the poet
century Dutch art theory and allegorizes the condition Jeremias de Decker, whose portrait Rembrandt painted
of absent presence that defines mimetic representation. as a gift in 1666 (St Petersburg, Hermitage),92 published
Ny l'artiste burin din renommé graueur: / Pour peindre les at Historisch Museum) 1996, pp. 106-23.
tracts, que ta face recelle, / Je tire ton pourtraict, du profond 90 In 1668 Huygens received copies of portraits of both
de mon coeur." Laura and Petrarch as gifts from de Vaurose, a member of the
88 Gowing, op. cit. (note 3), p. 126, note 84, suggested an Parliament of Orange in France, which was a possession of the
analogy between the suitor and Vermeer himself, and this is stadholders. On Huygens's correspondence relating to the por
elaborated in Arasse, op. cit. (note 22), pp. 37-39. Vergara, "Per traits see Ypes, op. cit. (note 14), pp. 135-37. Both editions of a
spectives," cit. (note 7), pp. 66-76, discusses various signs of collection of writings on Petrarch that center on praise of Laura
Vermeer's self-projection in the painting. and include an engraved portrait of her, lac. Phil. Tomasinus,
89 On Dutch lyrical poetry as a musical accompaniment in Petrarcha redivivius, Padua 1630, were also well known in the
connection with Vermeer's art see E. Goodman, "The landscape Netherlands. See Ypes, op. cit., (note 14), pp. 193-94.
on the wall in Vermeer," in W. Franits (ed.), op. cit. (note 6), pp. 91 See Braden, "Beyond frustration," cit. (note 14); idem,
73-88. Vergara, "Perspectives," cit. (note 7), pp. 67-68, notes Petrarchan love, cit. (note 14), pp. 7-60; Kerrigan and Braden,
that seventeenth-century Dutch art theory analogized musical Idea, cit. (note 14), esp. pp. 157-67; and S. Sturm-Maddox,
harmony and pictorial harmony. On music and musical instru Petrarch's laurels, University Park 1992.
ments in Vermeer's work see in particular E. Buijsen, "Music in 92 De Decker's poem on the portrait states that Rembrandt,
the age of Vermeer," in D. Huks and M.C. van der Sman (eds.), whom he calls "the Apelles of our time," painted his likeness
exhib. cat. Dutch society in the age of Vermeer, The Hague (Haags "not for the sake of monetary gain, but purely as a favor, at
164
the following epigram: "When you read of Laura, the Laura, instrument of his artistic ambition. As object of
doubt will be, / whether Laurel or Laura fits for thee."93 desire that forever remains beyond the reach of both
It may well be significant that Vermeer's Art of paint painter and viewer, she embodies and enables artistic
ing datable to 1665-66 (fig. 15), a cherished showpiece of creativity, just as Laura and her successors did for the
art that he retained for his studio, shows an elaborately poetry of Petrarch and his epigones.
dressed artist in the process of painting a woman who In focusing on the laurel-wreathed woman, Vermeer
wears a crown of laurels and holds a trumpet and a large points to his creation of a poetics of painting while ac
book.94 Vermeer emphasizes that the depicted artist, who knowledging the desires that underwrite and animate
has completed a chalk underdrawing for a half-figure of pictorial and literary representation alike. The art of
his model, is in the process of painting her laurel wreath, painting, a self-consciously consummate image of artistic
symbol of everlasting fame and honor.95 The woman's ambition, thus puts on display the conventionalized and
attributes identify her as Clio, the muse of history, and gendered aesthetic terms that govern Vermeer's medi
her inclusion has prompted interpretations of the picture tations on the paradox of absent presence in mimetic
as an allegory of history painting as the highest goal of artifice. Vermeer's model/muse, like Petrarch's Laura,
art. Eric Jan Sluijter has shown, however, that Clio's is the absent beloved who inspires and serves his un
meanings were not so narrowly defined in the seven dertaking to represent, as Snow writes, "painting's own
teenth century, when she was understood to signify more impossible desires."97 The beautiful women and ama
generally the desire for fame and immortality, inspira tory themes of Vermeer's paintings are therefore insepa
tions for the writing of history as well as the practice of rable from his preoccupation with the equivocal nature
art. As he concludes, Vermeer identifies the portrayal of of mimesis. Vermeer's ambiguity and self-reflexivity, so
contemporary female beauty, the focus of his work, with often isolated from the concerns of his aesthetic and his
the painter's fame, honor and immortality.96 In a studio torical moment, in fact reveal and elegantly visualize the
staged as a site of artistic triumph, Vermeer therefore nexus between painting, poetry and love that underlies
claims his place among the illustrious painters of The the seventeenth-century Dutch discourse on the nature
Netherlands (indicated by the elaborately illustrated wall of pictorial representation.
map) through his ability to render the vivid presence of a
beautiful woman. In this complex pictorial equivalent of DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ART & ARCHITECTURE
"Liefde baart kunst," the model/muse, like the women BOSTON UNIVERSITY
in Girl with a pearl earring, Woman standing at a virginal,

Young woman with a pearl necklace and The music les
son, performs the role of Vermeer's absent beloved, his
tracted nobly by the muses and out of love for art." See fur Philological Museum," The University of Birmingham, http://
ther M. Zell, "The gift among friends: Rembrandt's art in the www.philological.bham.ac.uk/owen/2eng.html.
network of his patronal and social relations," in A. Chong and 94 Shortly after Vermeer's death in 1675, and again in 1677,
M. Zell (eds.), Rethinking Rembrandt, Zwolle 2002, pp. 190-93. his widow and mother-in-law unsuccessfully attempted to save
The poem was published posthumously in Löf der geldsucht, ofte the picture from creditors. See Montias, op. cit. (note 18), pp.
vervolg der rijm-oeffeningen van J. de Decker, 2 vols., Amsterdam 219-30 and docs. 363, 379, 380. In one of these documents
1667-68, vol. 2, pp. 34-36. See W. Strauss and M. van der Meu (doc. 363) Catharina refers to the painting's subject as 'de Schil
len, The Rembrandt documents, New York 1979, doc. 1667/11. derconst' (the art of painting). On the status of this ambitious
93 J. de Deckers gedichten, ed. J.K. [Jacob Colom], Amster picture as a display piece for visitors to Vermeer's studio see
dam 1656, p. 4: "Uw' Laura lesende 'k en weet nau ('k belijt) Sluijter, op. cit. (note 35), pp. 265-66.
/ Of ghy den Lauwer-hoed of Laura waerder zijt." Quoted in 95 Ibid., p. 266. As Snow, op. cit. (note 22), p. 120, notes:
Ypes, op. cit. (note 14), p. 174. De Decker's epigram is a trans "It seems fitting that the laurel wreath over which he labors
lation of a Latin epigram by the Welsh writer John Owen. See should crown not the artist's head but the hand that paints."
Epigrammata Ioannis Owen cambrobrittani: oxoniensis editio pos Vergara, "Perspectives," cit. (note 7), p. 59, also observes reci
trema, Leiden 1628, lib. 2, p. 54. The English translation reads: procities between the model's laurel wreath and Vermeer's pro
"While O thy Laura's read, the doubt will be, / Lawrel or Laura fessional accomplishments.
whether fitt'st for thee." See the hypertext critical edition of 96 Sluijter, op. cit. (note 35), p. 277.
Owen's Epigrammata (Ioannis Audoenus), ed. D. Sutton, "The 97 Snow, op. cit. (note 22), p. 3.

Vermeer Poetics of Painting

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"Liefde baart kunst": Vermeer's poetics of painting

Author(s): Michael Zell

Stichting Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve

"Liefde baart kunst": Vermeer's poetics of painting*

3 Gerard ter Borch, Lady at her toilette, c. 1660. Detroit,

5 Gerard ter Borch, Woman writing a letter, c. 1655.

7 Johannes Vermeer, A young woman standing at a virginal,

io Johannes Vermeer, The music lesson, c. 1662—65. London,

parallel between painting and poetry, partly to dignify

seventeenth-century Holland. The most fully elaborated literary discussion of the

lavish Beschrijvinge der Stadt Delft of 1667 claims him,

recapitulates the Petrarchan poet's fixation on the una

13 Johannes Vermeer, Young woman with a pearl

in Petrarch's sonnet "II mío adversario" from the Rime

A false mirror, that day and night you tire

chair positioned prominently in the foreground.66 Yet

loved at her ablutions can also be found in seventeenth

century Dutch poetry, most famously in an anonymous

Hooft, then, the mirror's capacity to reflect the radiance

Deur valfch. IN TIME FALLAX i u mijn Licht. Acceptam fero lucem

Ic recoi de mamie, vigucur el vie.

Imaginem elm mcumgefta.

in Girl with a pearl earring, Woman standing at a virginal,

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