On the 350th anniversary of his death, he continues to reveal secrets. An investigation carried out by the Rijksmuseum, of Amsterdam, has discovered that he made some changes in his work entitled The alley (1658-1659). It is the view of a building on the edge of a Delft channel, the painter’s hometown, and it has been proven that the door of the house was first closed. When she decided to open it, the woman now sitting on the threshold appeared before at the entrance of the next alley. Exhibited by the museum itself, the study was carried out before and during.
The alley hangs next to another piece perhaps more famous, Lechera (1658-1660), and Vermeer deals with an exterior as it did with its characteristics and intimate interior scenes. Dated ten years after the end of – the war of Flanders – who faced Felipe II’s Spain with the United Provinces of what today are the Netherlands, the artist’s Delft is calm. The calm is transmitted to the viewer, but he made numerous changes while painting. According to the experts of the Rijksmuseum, he left the door of the house initially closed and put two women dedicated to domestic tasks in the alley next door. One lava in a sweep and the other sews. He must see that some pictorial depth was missing, because it has also been seen now that when he opened the door, he placed the woman with the seam sitting at the door. “That female figure is a mirror copy that had been placed at the entrance of the alley,” says Annelies Van Loon, a museum researcher. “As I could not cut the first and paste it somehow on the other side, it painted it again with the same precision,” he explains to the phone.
To look good at the result of the changes, experts have produced an oil animation, “and it can be seen that the open door makes it more alive and involves the viewer with greater intensity,” says the expert. Vermeer was a very careful observer, “and the picture is thus more interesting.” To get to the heart of The alleyin the workshops of the Rijkmuseum they have been used, among other non -invasive techniques, “High resolution photography, X -ray fluorescence scanner and image spectrometer to look through the layers of pigments,” Van Loon continues to say. In this way, they have been able to “see their first ideas.” Pieter Roelofs, director of Fine Arts of Rijksmuseum, also says that “when literally opening the door, Vermeer makes the scene accessible to the viewer”, in the statement where they present the work.
To the study they have contributed, analyzing the works of Vermeer present in their collections, scientists and conservatives of, the Frick collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of London, the University of Antwerp and the Mauritswux Gallery, of The Hague. The alley It is also one of the few known paintings of the painter, along with DELFT view (1660-1661) where heaven can be seen. The landscape is exposed in the MauritShuis gallery.
At the beginning of the deep approach to Vermeer’s work, it was discovered that in the first version of the milkmaid there was a firewood basket and a jug hanger in the room where the young woman prepares a bread cake. The final work does not have the accessories, and the wall is smooth and empty, giving a more serene appearance to the whole. Scientists have also observed that “30 of the 37 works attributed to the artist present changes ranging from subtle corrections to radical alterations in composition and meaning.” The painter had moderate success in life and then fell almost forgotten. In the nineteenth century, French art critic Théophile Thoré played a crucial role in his rediscovery. Rijksmuseum investigations are detailed in a book entitled Closer to Vermeer: New Research on the Painter and His Art (“Closer to Vermeer: new research on the painter and his art”), published this July.
