A counterfeit of what has to decay’: Vermeer and the Mapping of Absence in A Woman with a Lute

 Johannes Vermeer,  A Woman with a Lute,  ca. 1662–64,  New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

This essay explores Vermeer’s painting known as A Woman with a Lute from the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a visual poem on amorous and artistic longing. A closer look at its key elements—from the musical instrument being tuned by the lady to the map on the wall behind her—shows that this seemingly unmediated view into a private world is as engaged with ideas as Vermeer’s more overtly allegorical compositions. Most notable among these ideas are the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm, the notion that every record of the present is a form of “history,” and that the art of painting is no less eloquent in its silence than its sister arts of music or poetry. Ultimately, as in many other images of solitary females, with A Woman with a Lute the artist pulls us into a circle of desire, effectively turning us from beholders to coparticipants in a “composition,” whereby the absent comes back into presence.

DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.15

Acknowledgements

This essay is a small token of my gratitude for Walter Liedtke, whose love of art and brilliant insights live through his writings and the memories of our conversations. I also wish to thank the editors for their dedication in preparing this very special issue of the JHNA.

Imprint

Review: Peer Review (Double Blind)
DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.15
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation:
Aneta Georgievska-Shine, "A counterfeit of what has to decay’: Vermeer and the Mapping of Absence in A Woman with a Lute," Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9:1 (Winter 2017) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.15