Carol Pylant: Lost Vermeer Found

Carol Pylant: Lost Vermeer Found

I began painting my first copy of a Vermeer painting, “A Woman Writing”, nearly thirty years ago as a painting demonstration for my undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original hangs in the National Gallery in Washington. D.C.. My small copy, oil on panel, was based on a museum reproduction. The central section of this demo painting was developed in a grisaille, shades of gray, consistent with the light and dark values and volume of the lady’s face, arms and jacket in Vermeer’s original painting. A few glazes of transparent color were later applied to demonstrate the glazing technique for a graduate student. Unfinished, this 1993 partial copy served as an example of the grisaille and glaze technique for all my Introduction to Painting classes until my retirement in 2011.

The surface of this small copy remained untouched until the autumn of 2017 when I traveled to Dublin to see the Vermeer exhibit in Ireland’s National Gallery. I was struck by Vermeer’s masterful handling of paint to create works of such exquisite timeless beauty and stillness. Inspired, I returned to my demo copy, lightly sanding the surface to remove the 30-year-old glazes and began reworking the underpainting, completing the composition and applying the color. This time my goal was to teach myself about Vermeer’s depth of color, soft focus and compositional balance.

Finishing the small study of “A Woman Writing” in a few months gave me the confidence to attempt to reproduce my favorite Vermeer, “The Concert”, stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 (and still missing). In 1984 I gave up a tenure track teaching offer in California and moved to Boston so I could visit the painting as often as possible. A few of my figure paintings from the 1980’s were directly influenced by Vermeer’s compositional arrangement of 2 women with a man seated, his back to the viewer.

This second Vermeer copy proved far more challenging than my first. I began the drawing and underpainting in December of 2017 and completed it 3 years later. Painting in oil on panel, I tried to match the values, color, composition and soft focus of Vermeer’s edges in the life size reproduction that I purchased from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I was originally attracted to Vermeer’s handling of the paint surface and the subtle changes wrought to it throughout the centuries. Unfortunately, there were no high-definition images available to work from. Color reproductions of the painting vary considerably so I was never certain what colors were true to the original. My copy was developed using a gray underpainting and a gradual layering of opaque and transparent color. Attention was given to Vermeer’s choices in composing the painting with light and shadow and his contrast of sharp and soft focus.

There are numerous theories that Vermeer may have used various projection lens and mirrors to create his paintings. Having gone through the process of recreating his work without the use of a projected image other than the initial layout drawing I now question many of those theories. Foremost I accomplished what I set out to achieve. A better understanding of the complexity and intelligence of Vermeer’s decisions in creating such a beautiful painting as “The Concert”.