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Title: Woman Reading a Letter
Year: c. 1662-63
Artist: Johannes Vermeer
Technique: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 46,5 x 39 cm

A young woman is reading a letter, around her are a table and chairs. She is illuminated by the light from what is presumably a window. On the wall behind her is a map. The artist has achieved a muted tone with his use of blues and browns. Vermeer has played here with the light and shadow. While the map and the chair cast a distinct shadow on the wall, the woman does not. It makes her stands out from the background. The subtle gradations of colour and the contrasts in this painting were already greatly admired two hundred years ago. A 1791 auction catalogue remarks on 'the pleasing effects of light and shadow'.

Love letter?
In Dutch genre {A 'genre' is a theme in painting. Up to the 16th century, most paintings featured religious subjects. Around 1600 this started to change. Artists began specialising in a particular subject. These new 'genres' were usually not or only partly religious. They included, for example, landscape, still life, architectural painting and history painting. These had long been included in paintings as elements of a composition, but never as the central theme. There is also a genre known as 'genre' painting. This category features works in which people are depicted in their everyday environment.} painting a woman reading a letter was usually a reference to love. The map on the wall may refer to a distant lover, but the painting offers no further clues to a hidden meaning. The map {This map of Holland and West Friesland was signed in 1620 by Balthasar Florisz. van Berckenrode. It was published a few years later by Willem Jansz. Blaeu. The only surviving example is kept in the Westfries Museum in Hoorn.}, showing Holland and West Friesland appears in an earlier painting by Vermeer of the 'Soldier and the Laughing Girl'. This picture, painted in 1658, is now in the Frick Collection in New York. Although the young woman appears to be pregnant, this is not necessarily the case. The fashionable wide jacket she is wearing may make her figure appear fuller than it is.

Lines and areas
The woman is surrounded by furniture. The table and chairs define the space around her. Vermeer adjusted the balance in his painting by playing with the areas of light and shadow. X-ray photos show that the map on the wall was originally narrower. To improve the composition Vermeer made it wider. He also altered the woman's jacket. Originally it was a wider, fur-trimmed cloak. Vermeer made the jacket simpler and less wide. The woman's back, dark in shadow, stands out sharply against the light wall behind her. The contour of her back is clear and deliberately depicted, while other lines are more fuzzy, such as the illuminated profile of her face.

Link: http://rijksmuseum.nl/index.jsp

les UEEH 2006 sont à voir également sur le blog de Joao da Silva

pour ma part, je vous abandonne pour quelques jours. c'est demain le grand jour du départ pour le petit nord européen. nous prenons la route pour une courte aventure qui remplira, je l'espère, nos pensées de souvenirs agréables avant l'arrivée du long hiver.

• ... | 06-12-2009
• ... | 06-12-2009
• oh, boys, boys, boys... | 21-11-2009
• ... | 16-10-2009
• rendez-vous | 01-10-2009
• mais qui a arraché ce petit bout de papier ? qui !!!!!! | 24-09-2009
• pourrais-je libérer mon esprit ? | 15-09-2009
• pauvre vieille fille à la recherche d'un signe | 15-09-2009
• si vous ne sentez pas le votre, c'est que vous n'en avez pas | 13-09-2009
• que de maux sans réponse... | 13-09-2009
• un jour, toutes ces paillettes bruleront dans un feu de paille | 10-09-2009
• de tes mille visages, lequel est le vrai ? | 09-09-2009
• bisounours (cocorosie) | 09-09-2009
• minhas lágrimas | 08-09-2009
• humiliation (ou le coeur blessé) | 08-09-2009