We read Martin Gladwell’s Blink for my museum studies seminar — a bestseller that focuses on the importance of those inexplicable moments of intinct. In the first chapter, he talks about the Getty Kouros  controversy.  Curators at the Getty, looking over the Greek statue for months, became convinced of its authenticity and purchased it at great price; yet others, such as Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan, saw it at first glance and simply knew it could not be real.  Whether or not the Kouros is a forgery or not remains unknown, but Gladwell argues that those first glace, gut-instinct moments should not be ignored.

Attributed to Vermeer, A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals, currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Click image for larger view)

I had a “blink” moment in front of the controversial Vermeer now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I wrote about a few months ago.  As I walked through the Italian Renaissance rooms to the Dutch Golden Age galleries, I was completely ready to dismiss the Vermeer as a fake.  After all, in reproductions we’d viewed in my seminar, it looked so preposterous: a huge yellow shawl, blank walls, ringlets in her hair and those hands (click the image to the right to view it closeup, and you’ll understand what I mean).  But when I walked in to the room, turned the corner, and marched straight up to the little painting, the first thought that popped into my mind was: Wow, it really is a Vermeer.

It took me a good twenty minutes or more in the room — happily, surrounded by almost all of the Met’s authenticated Vermeers for comparison — to put my fingers on exactly why my gut instinct was so positive.  The second thought in my mind was when I looked at the ribbons in the figure’s hair.  They are painted with such care but at the same time such simplicity — a single pulling of bright red paint, a few daubs of white — that immediately made me think of a very similar detail in the Louvre’s Lacemaker (see gallery below): the red and white threads pooling over the pincushion are painted with just as much care.  Interestingly, the ringlet hairstyle I’d originally considered so odd appears in that very painting, too. Moreover, the Lacemaker is about the same size as this intimate, small painting.

As for her hands and the strange, almost blurry quality of the painting style — both are actually pretty consistent with the late style of Vermeer.  The Woman at the Virginals (see gallery below) in the National Gallery in London is a prime example of this late style: glassy eyes, a somewhat vacant expression, less outright attention to anatomy (those hands), and a thicker, flatter, and less paint-dappled touch than in earlier works like the Rijksmuseum Maid with a Milk Pitcher, where even loaves of bread seem to sparkle in midday light.  But they do retain some of Vermeer’s well-known style, especially in the soft quality of light.  Just a few canvases over from the Young Woman at the Virginals is the Met’s own Study of a Young Woman (see gallery below).  The soft contour of her cheek against the black background — identical to that of the infamous Girl with a Pearl Earring in the Hague — can barely be called a contour, as it melts into a soft non-edge of light.  I found that same quality (though not quite as stunning) in the curls and neck of the Young Woman in question.

Of course, I guess a forger could have looked at the late Lacemaker and Woman at the Virginals and decided to create some sort of merging of the two: the hands and virginal theme of the London piece, with the size, hairstyle and tiny detailing (down to the very same colors) of the Louvre work.  It’s not totally out of the question.  But even as I stood in front of that painting trying to play devil’s advocate of my first gut reaction, I was sucked in by the ribbons and the soft, melting outlines of her face into the wall behind her — feelings I have to say I’ve only really felt in front of real Vermeers.  And I couldn’t help but remember Gladwell’s Blink and the importance of first impressions that we’d discussed in my seminar.

Of course, I’m an undergrad, albeit one with a great love of Vermeer — so I’m certainly not trying to put myself at the same level of Thomas Hoving or Walter Liedtke, curator of Northern Art at the Met, who just published this work in his recent monograph on the famous Dutch artist, adding that the odd yellow shawl was probably painted over this “minor” late work of Vermeer.  Who knows if this work is a forgery or not? — I certainly don’t, and maybe we never will know for sure; but till then, I’m content to think fondly of those gorgeous ribbons, the softness of her curls against the whitewashed wall, and the memories they stir up about the Vermeers I was lucky enough to see in Paris and the Netherlands.

What do you think? Have you seen this “new” Vermeer? Tell us your thoughts in the comments…

Photos from the Met and Reference Comparisons

Caravaggio was not always a ‘trendy’ artist.  Before museums dedicated exhibitions solely to him, before monographs were written by art historians, indeed before a bestselling non-fiction art-crime book was published about his lost painting, Caravaggio was reluctantly accepted by collectors in the US as an artist primarily associated with genre painting, and nothing much more.  (Genre painting is the depiction of every day life).

What they didn’t really bother to collect were his religious works, which most art historians today agree are really the best of his works.  In his religious works, the young, controversial, forward-thinking artist of the 17th century combines his observations of every day life, stark experimentations with light sources, and clever use of what seem to be dank, monochromatic compositions into beautifully subtle and “realistic” religious paintings.  I’ve seen a few pretty amazing Caravaggios in Italy (particularly in the Galleria Borghese, if you have the luck to visit!), but the Met went out of its way to acquire this very late Caravaggio in 1997 when it came on the auction market, and it’s a good thing they did, because it’s pretty awesome.

The Met’s curator of European Paintings, Keith Christiansen, suspects is one of the very last paintings the artist did.  My favorite part about this painting is the light source and how cleverly Caravaggio uses it.  Caravaggio is known for being the founder of those “Baroque” light effects, inspiring a league of “Caravaggiesque” painters to follow in his footsteps.  Here, as often in Caravaggio’s religious works, the light acts as a religious signifier.

Caravaggio, Detail of The Denial of St. Peter, late 1590s-early 1600s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (Credit)

In the painting, St. Peter denies that he is a follower of Jesus to a Roman soldier as a servant girl, who suspects Peter’s true identity, looks on.  The Roman soldier is completely in the dark, showing that he has no idea of Peter’s belief in Christ; the servant girl, in partial light, is beginning to recognize Peter; and meanwhile Peter, an apostle, is in full, direct light.  This light shows who knows, who doesn’t, who believes — an amazingly revolutionary but clever and subtle way to enhance the story and the intimate image.

And a fun fact: the helmet in the painting is actually in the collection of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, Italy (for those of you who’ve read this blog before, you know that’s one of my favorite museums in Italy!).  Unfortunately I couldn’t find a picture of the helmet itself, but it’s in there, somewhere, whether in the galleries or in storage!  Caravaggio was known to use props in his works and this one is, clearly, no exception.  Could it be that Caravaggio’s own prop helmet is, at this moment, sitting in the galleries of the Bargello?  Guess I’ll just have to go back to Florence to find out… in the meantime, visit the almost-real-thing in one of Caravaggio’s masterful last works in the Met.

Visit this Caravaggio in the European Paintings gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd St., New York, NY.
Visit (or at least look for) the helmet in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Via del Proconsolo 4, Florence, Italy.