The Geographer

The 17th century was a time of dramatic discovery, a time when the charting of unexplored worlds was a dream shared by adventurers and traders but by geographers and astronomers as well.

As James Welu has noted, Hendrick Hondius' terrestrial globe, which rests on the cabinet in its four-legged stand, is turned to reveal the Indian Ocean which may be a note of national pride. This route was taken by the Dutch to reach China and Japan. The text within the decorative cartouche on the lower right-hand side of the globe (illegible in Vermeer's paintings) reads in part: "Since very frequent expeditions are started every day to all parts of the world, by which their positions are clearly seen and reported, I trust that it will not appear strange to anyone if this description of the globe differs very much from others previously published by us ...we ask the benevolent leader, that if he should have a more complete knowledge of some place, he willingly, communicate the same to us for the sake of increasing the public good." The same terrestrial globe appears in Vermeer's later Allegory of Faith but with a very different allegorical meaning.

Mapmaking in the Netherlands during the 1500s and 1600s is noted for its works of lavish decoration, particularly the cartes à figures, whose ornamental panels depicted figures, landscapes and possessions. Most of the period's maps and atlases were the work of family businesses.

To the left is a detail of an existing copy of the map showing the area which appears in Vermeer's painting (see the whole map click on Relative Image no. 7). In this sea chart one can clearly make out the Iberian and Italian peninsulas as well as part of Northern Africa with the South to the left and North to the right. Map orientation was not yet standardized in those times. Typically, sea charts showed little details of the adjacent land but focused on navigational landmarks and hazards, anchorages and soundings, together with depictions of ships in full sail and mythical sea monsters as decoration.

Vermeer surrounded his scholar with objects appropriate for his study. This black-framed decorative nautical chart of "all the Sea coasts of Europe" was made by Willem Jansz Blaeu in 1600 who had one of the largest publishing firms in Amsterdam. The actual globe, showing the Indian Ocean and the sea chart of Europe, are inscribed Orientalis Oceanus and Oceanus Occidentalis, both ways on which the ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) sailed for their extensive trade with overseas.

Because of its decorative cartouches, it may have been intended for framing as well as technical use. One such map can be found in the Deutsche Staatsbibliotek in Berlin.

The sea chart may imply the need to chart one's course through the world, and thus symbolically through life. Maps and charts of all kinds were very popular in the Dutch mercantile republic which owed much of its prosperity to navigation. Contemporary genre interior paintings are filled with similar representations of maps and Vermeer himself included them a number of times in his works.

Oriental carpets were very popular in the Netherlands and were represented countless times in Dutch genre interior painting. However, were rarely shown lying on the floor being prized above all for their exotic decorative effect. Even the richest Dutch citizens preferred the less elegant but practical large-planked wooden floors often covered with rustic mats to protect their feet from the long and gelid Northern winters.

In this painting, the carpet seems almost to be in its initial stage of the painting process. The shadowed areas are delineated for the most part in free-flowing and somewhat sketchy brushstrokes in monochrome brownish underpaint. The brightly illuminated areas receive more color and the famous pointillés (spherical points of light toned paint) abound. These pointillés are usually regarded as evidence that Vermeer employed a camera obscura (a kind of primitive photographic camera) as an aid to his painting.

This carpet seems to be the same one Vermeer depicted in the Astronomer, which is very likely its pendant.

Faust
Rembrandt van Rijn
etching, 1650-1662

When viewing the original painting, the vague pentimento shape of the geographer's forehead can be seen to the left of the figure which seems to indicate that the artist originally portrayed his head at a different angle. He likely was looking down at the chart lying on the table.

Vermeer's young geographer takes up precisely the position in reverse of Faust in Rembrandt's famous etching (see left) which may have been his source. Although the moment in which the scholar peers out the window suspended in a moment of contemplation or even revelation is magically captured, neither the questions he asks nor the answers he seeks are revealed.

Woman at a Clavichord (detail)
Gerrit Dou
c. 1665
37.7 x 29.8 cm
Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich

Nowhere but in this painting can the distance between Vermeer's concept of art and that of his direct competitors, the fijnschilders, be observed. This immensely popular Leiden-based school lavished attention to their work which was unprecedented. The level of microscopic detail is astounding even today. Gerrit Dou, who perhaps brought the fijnschilder approach to its logical conclusion, painted every knot in his repoussoir curtain. More unbelievable is the over all dimension of the work, just 37.7 x 29.8 cm. The detail to the left comprises a fraction of Dou's composition.

In the painting's composition, this nondescript curtain serves as a so-called repoussoir. Repoussoir is a means of achieving perspective or spatial contrasts by the use of illusionistic devices such as the placement of a large figure or object in the immediate foreground of a painting to increase the illusion of depth in the rest of the picture. This kind of repoussoir was generally placed on the left-hand side of the composition. It seems that Westerners are conditioned in our mode of observation by the direction in which we read. Scientific evidence indicates that our eyes tend to rapidly scan images starting from the left to the right as when reading. By consequence, Vermeer's repoussoir is suited to be looked at by the reading eye, which, after a brief moment's delay at the repoussoir, is directed immediately toward the key moment of the representation, in this case the momentary gesture of the geographer, exploring the rest of the painting afterwards. Vermeer used the same repoussoir curtain even more dramatically in the Art of Painting and in the Allegory of Faith.

Map expert James Welu believes that given its translucence the large rolled chart on the table might be on vellum and from a few faint lines it may be a nautical chart. Unfortunately, the detail and pictorial nuance in this area has most likely suffered from repeated restorations.

The curving outlines of a lighter toned area show that Vermeer eliminated a sheet of paper which once laid on this stool most likely in order to darken the corner of the composition and guide the viewer's eye towards the center of the composition. A square for measuring can be made out by the attentive viewer.

Vermeer altered the position of the dividers which serve the geographer to make measurements on his maps. They originally pointed downwards rather than across the geographer's body. The final alignment follows more naturally the direction of the rolled yellow scroll and the incoming light.

This window seems to be the same as the one in the Astronomer considered by many critics to be a pendant of the Geographer. However,minor changes in each of the window's panes are described more accurately in the window of the Geographer while in the Astronomer, a portion of what is most likely red and yellow colored coat of arms can be partially observed. Parts of the window casement appear partially unfinished.

There are two signatures on the Geographer. Scholars once believed that this conspicuous signature on the background wall (with the date in Roman numerals) was not original even though the date, MDCLXVIIII (1669) was compatible with the date most Vermeer experts have ascribed to the painting. Recent restoration have demonstrated that both signatures are original.

Anthony van Leeuwenhoek
Jan Verkolje
1653
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

This kind of exotic imported Japanese robe was widely in vogue in the mid-17th century Netherlands. It was commonly worn by scholars in their studios and appears in a great many paintings of the times in which doctors, geographers and astronomers were represented. One similar can be seen in the portrait of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Delft scientist who has been associated with Vermeer through their mutual interest in optics.

In Vermeer's and Van Leeuwenhoek's days such keizersrokken, or Imperial kimonos, were precious gifts given in batches of thirty and sometimes even more to Dutch merchants who passed the test of their annual visit to the Imperial court in Edo (Tokyo). This visit was their only permitted sojourn on the Japanese mainland; at all other times they were confined to Deshima, the island assigned to them for the duration of their stay in Japan. Thus these robes were neither merchandise in Japan nor clearly for sale back home in Holland. There they were worn indoors by scholars, amateurs, gentlemen, even mayors. By the mid-18th century they were made from imported Indian and Chinese silk and became a more common imitation ware. In Vermeer's day, then, for his geographer to wear a Japon is to wear an as yet not commodified garment.

The brisk angular folds of the garment as well as the contrast between the cool blue and the warm orange lining stimulate the eye and suggest the excitement of the young geographer's intellectual inquiry. Vermeer's stylization of drapery was to become even more exaggerated in his later pictures.

More than once, critics have suggested that this picture is not finished. Passages such as the window frame, the carpet and the floor all appear defined in their essential features but lack color and nuance characteristic of Vermeer's works of the period. The cupboard, presumable made of wood, appears particularly vague and the play of light and shadow on the decorative inlay being particularly tentative.

One would imagine that the cupboard served to contain the various instruments and charts of the geographer.

Curiously, the Geographer bears two distinct signatures, the present one of the cupboard and one with a date MDCLXVIIII (1669) on the background wall. Although scholars once thought that neither was original it seems now likely that they both are authentic.

This remarkable chair may be the same one that can be seen behind the table in Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Necklace and in the Concert as well. The decorative flower motifs on the upholstery match closely.

Such chairs appears to have been of more or less local Delft manufacture and it is hardly possible to find this kind of upholstery in the paintings of masters who came from elsewhere. In the Municipal Museum at Delft six of the 41 chairs are preserved, which in 1661 were delivered by Maximiliaan van der Gucht, the famous Delft tapestry weaver, to the town for the use of the members of the Town Council, "The Forty."

Cross-staff, Northern Germany(?)
signed: L. Dankbaar, dated 1790
Ebony, brass 75,5 x 1,7 x 1,7 cm
3 sliders (51 cm, 34 cm, 17 cm)
with binding screws
Altonaer Museum Hamburg
- Norddeutsches Landesmuseum, Hamburg

According to some Vermeer scholars, this detail of one section of the window grate is in reality a part of a so-called Jacob's or cross-staff even though it may be difficult to recognize. On close observation and above all by examining the contours with a microscope one of the cross-staff's perpendicular vanes or sliders, placed in front of the stony window lintel, are clearly visible.

The cross-staff was developed in the early 14th century although similar devices for measurement were traced to the Chaldeans (c. 400 BC). The instrument was mainly used for measuring the angle of the elevation of the sun and stars as well as measuring the heights of buildings or topographical features such as mountains and hills, which made it a usual device both for astronomers and geographers.