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1997 Review of Vermeer and the Art of Painting, by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Christiane Hertel Bryn Mawr College, [email protected]

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Custom Citation Hertel, Christiane. Review of Vermeer and the Art of Painting, by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Renaissance Quarterly 50 (1997): 329-331, doi: 10.2307/3039381.

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For more information, please contact [email protected]. REVIEWS 329

Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Vermeer of paintlayers, x-rays, collaged infrared and the Art of Painting. New Ha- reflectograms,and lab reports - to ven and London: Yale University guide the readerthrough this process. Press, 1995. 143 pls. + x + 201 pp. The pedagogicand rhetorical power of $45. Wheelock's account lies in the eye- This book about Vermeer'stech- openingskill with which he makesthis nique of paintingdiffers from the au- processcome alivefor the reader.The thor'searlier work on the artistby tak- way he accomplishesthis has every- ing a new perspectiveboth on Vermeer thingto do with his convictionthat by as painterand on the readeras viewer. understandingVermeer's artistic prac- Wheelockinvestigates Vermeer's paint- tice we also come to know the artist. ing techniquesin orderto understand As the agentof this practiceVermeer is his artisticpractice and, ultimately, his alsothe grammaticalsubject of most of artisticmind. He shows the readerto Wheelock'saccounts. Vermeer not on- what extent one can answerthe old ly "depicted,"he "subtly opened," questionsof justhow Vermeer"did it" "clearlyintended," "wanted to intro- - the breadbasketin the Milkmaid,for duce," "reinforced,"and "felt free to example, or the carpeton the Music adjust."Similarly, Wheelock speaks of Lesson'stable, or the famousroofs and Vermeer's "interest,""conscious ma- boatsin Viewof Delft; of how his paint- nipulation,""concern," and even of ings cameabout - somethingas partic- "the confidencewith which Vermeer ular, for example, as the Kenwood controlled his medium."Wheelock's House Guitar Player;and why they aim is to show Vermeerworking be- look the way they do - for example, fore our eyes as the highly self-aware those radiant,self-absorbed women in and sensitiveperson we alwaysconsid- the Womanin BlueReading a Letteror ered him to be. He therebyputs to WomanHolding a Balance. rest any simple notion thatVermeer Wheelock'sfocus is on seventeenof mirroredthe world. the thirty-fiveor thirty-sixpaintings To speakthus of Vermeer'sagency ascribed to Vermeer. Although he raises methodologicalquestions about drawsonly sparinglyon the largebody the technicalexamination of paintings of criticalreception and interpretation and about the range of interpretive they have engendered, Wheelock optionswithin this approachto art. In makesample use of comparableworks chapterone, "AnApproach to Viewing by Vermeer'scontemporaries. While Vermeer,"Wheelock addressesthese acknowledging the perhaps unique questionsthrough an extendeddiscus- power of Vermeer'swork to call forth sion of Womanin BlueReading a Let- such varied,often personalresponses, ter.Here as elsewhere,his concernis to Wheelock'sown intention is to "give matchthe painter'sreflected practice as some frameworkfor these subjective closely as possible with the inter- feelingsby delvinginto the processby preter'scritical practice. In demonstrat- which Vermeerarrived at and created ing the natureof Vermeer'stechnique, his images"(2). Wheelockclearly distinguishes between One major achievementof this his own "approachto viewing Ver- book is Wheelock'scommand of tech- meer," "Vermeer'sworking proce- nicalresources - microscopicblow-ups dures," and "Vermeer'sattitudes to- 330 RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY wardspainting" (8). The first,Wheel- underlinesVermeer's practice of com- ock's approach,involves makingthe bining paintingtechniques that were most scrupulousconnection possible developedat differenttimes for differ- betweenthe othertwo. In eachof the ent subjectsand expressivepurposes, following sixteen chapters, devoted concludingthat "enoughvariables exist respectivelyto one painting,Wheelock to precludeestablishing a precisechro- seeks to reestablishthis connection. nologicalsequence of his work on this Yet in pointing out similarities,he basisalone" (165). Wheelockforegoes avoidstelling a (hi)storyof Vermeer's any furtherelucidation or justification "lifeand work." His approachyields a of the chronologyoffered in the ap- multi-facetedVermeer capable of ex- pended"Catalogue of Vermeer'sPaint- pressinga broadrange of emotionsand ings." The readeris left with the per- intellectualpositions, from melancholy hapstoo difficulttask of usingwhat has to exuberance,from observationto been learnedin the previouschapters contemplation,from worldly exhorta- to work out the integrationof the re- tion to religiousdevotion. mainingnineteen paintings for her-or Wheelock shows that these polar himself. facets provide an insight into Ver- The questionthat might linger in meer'speculiar historical position. Ver- any reader'smind, despite the author's meer sharedhis contemporaries'con- stated intentions, is something like: cernwith allegory,for example,yet he what does Wheelockthink Vermeer's simultaneouslydeveloped an "abstract oeuvre is about? Or even: Who was painting technique"in which "paint, Vermeer?Wheelock offers discreet an- however expressively applied, re- swersto thesequestions. He emphasiz- mainedfirst andforemost paint" (16f). es that Vermeer'sart is not primarily In the finalchapter Wheelock gives his descriptiveand, in this sense,illusion- own definitionof this historicalplace. istic. Insteadhe used lenses and the It is the evolutionof Vermeer'sartistic cameraobscura chiefly with an interest practicefrom the "broadnessof vision in adoptingthe expressivequality of and execution"of his early history their optical effects. He also under- painting;through a periodof technical scores Vermeer'sunusual and, in his refinementand complexity,partly in- era, unmatchedsensitivity to human spiredby the works andtechniques of psychology.For Wheelockthese quali- Fabritius,de Hooch andter Borch(the ties of Vermeer's oeuvre are balanced: genre paintingsand cityscapesof the "Thedelicate equilibrium between illu- early to mid-1660s);to an independent sionism and abstraction"in his tech- periodof simplification and abstrac- niquesuggests "both the transienceand tion (the genrepaintings and, presum- permanenceof humanexistence" (163). ably, the religious allegory of the This judgmentis both specificand 1670s)(163-65). Such a schemeis a fa- generalenough to be in keepingwith miliarmodel for mappingthe develop- Wheelock'sultimately stated intention, ment of long-livedand productive art- which is to provide a frameworkfor ists like Titian or Rembrandt,but "the range of interpretationspossible Wheelock shows that the scheme for Vermeer'spaintings" (166). On a works for Vermeeras long as it re- specificlevel, Wheelock'sunderstand- mainsflexible. Throughout, Wheelock ing of the "poeticquality" on which REVIEWS 331 this rangedraws may be found in his intersection of medicine, natural phi- interpretationof TheArt of Painting losophy, and alchemy in seventeenth- (chap. 13). Not unexpectedly,this is century education, medical practice, also the one paintingwhere the three and scientific thought. distinctinterpretive aspects mentioned Thus, Newman shows that al- aboveare entirely mediated. though Starkey himself made a rhetori- This is a book that invites those cal claim to have turned away from who approachVermeer from differing academic natural philosophy to the perspectivesto test their choicesagainst chemical philosophy and to alchemical the artisticprocesses that led to the practice, in actuality the natural philos- complex phenomenonwe call visual ophy teaching that he encountered at evidencein Vermeer'spainting. Harvard in the 1640s may well have CHRISTIANEHERTEL fostered the development of his al- BrynMawr College chemical interests in various ways. For example, he is likely to have been taught a corpuscular theory of matter William R. Newman. Gehennical ultimately derived - via Julius Caesar Fire: TheLives of GeorgeStarkey, an Scaliger and influences from sixteenth- American Alchemist in the Scientific century Cambridge - from late medie- Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Har- val Aristotelian concepts of minima na- vard University Press, 1994. 8 pls. turalia. Furthermore, not only was + xiv + 348 pp. $49.95. there general acceptance of the funda- Some years ago, WilliamNewman mentals of alchemical theory, but vari- was ableto confirmthat, as hadprevi- ous members of the academic commu- ously beensuspected, the influentialal- nity showed an active interest in chemicaltreatises published under the transmutationalalchemy, often in com- pseudonym of EirenaeusPhilalethes bination with iatrochemistry. were the work of George Starkey In England, where he arrived in (1628-65).Now, in the presentwork, 1650, Starkey practiced Helmontian ia- Newman combinesan accountof Star- trochemical medicine, manufacturedal- key's careerfrom his originsin Bermu- chemically prepared remedies and per- da - wherehis interestin scienceman- fumes, and nurtured a story that he ifested itself early on in the form of was in receipt of secrets of alchemical carefulobservation of local insect life transmutation given him by a mysteri- - throughhis Harvardeducation (A.B. ous adept in New England. These ac- 1646)and subsequent years as a contro- tivities and claims initially secured him versialmedical and alchemical practitio- a respectful reception in the circle ner in the London of the 1650s and around Samuel Hartlib and by Robert early 1660s,to his prematuredeath in Boyle himself. As Newman points out, the 1665plague outbreak, with an anal- although there were pragmatic reasons ysis of the contentand cultural context for Starkey's claims to portentous se- of his openly acknowledgediatrochem- cret knowledge acquired second hand ical writingsand of the arcaneproduc- (the preservation of manufacturing tions of EirenaeusPhilalethes. The re- processes and the desire to impress pa- sult is a richly detailedaccount that trons), there is also no doubt that Star- providesmany new insights into the key himself believed that he was the