Woman with a Lute

Vermeer's ladies who hold a lute or guitar are not occupied with music making. They turn away; there is some momentary distraction in the air to draw their attention. They are near discovered playing and they never confront us. The fact is of interest for it illustrates not only Vermeer's temperamental preference, his distaste for anything obtrusively purposeful or demonstrative in his subject, but also the way in which it governed his use of the resources of his school.

Lawrence Gowing, Vermeer, 1952

No signature appears on this work.

c. 1664
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. Vermeer: The Complete Works, New York, 1997)

c. 1662-1663
Walter Liedtke Vermeer: The Complete Paintings, New York, 2008)

literature

exhibitions

A Young Woman playing a Harpsichord
to a Young Man (detail)
Jan Steen
c. 1659
42.3 x 33 cm
National Gallery, London

Because Dutch music was mostly uninventive and undistinguished, Dutch song books contained as many French as native airs. Song books were collected passionately by amateurs of the well-to-do burgers typified by the young lute player in this picture. Dutch songbooks (see left) features gezelschapslied (a social lyric set to musical accompaniment) containing French and to a lesser degree English and Italian pieces.

The principle explanation for the lack of inspiration in Dutch music during the Golden Age of painting has been attributed to diverse circumstances, among them, the dampening role of the dominant Calvinist religion which frowned on all music during church services except for unaccompanied congregational singing. Thus, without significant church and aristocratic patronage, there was little incentive for major artistic innovations. Dutch music expert Pieter van Grijp wrote, "As we see it today, strength of Dutch art lies not so much in its history pieces as in still-lives, landscapes, marines, portraits, and genre painting and suchlike. Similarly the strength of Dutch music lies not in the intricate, polyphonic or Baroque compositions, but in that simplest of all genres - the song that enjoyed an incomparable bloom here. This musical strength lay in the sheer delight in singing found among people of all classes, in an appetite for music that was fed and stilled not so much by composers as by poets."

Portrait of Joan Blaeu
J. van Rossum
Netherlands Maritime Museum, Amsterdam

In her seminal study of Dutch realism The Art of Describing, art historian Svetlana Alpers remarked on the mapping impulse as a peculiar characteristic of Dutch scientific and visual culture. According to Alpers, in no other time and place did mapping and picturing have such a strong coincidence as in 17th-century Holland. Map makers and map publishers were referred to as "world describers." The Dutch painter and map maker had in common the will to capture a great range of knowledge and information about the world on a flat surface.

Maps were produced in great numbers for both practical and decorative use and could be found on the walls of even common Dutch homes. And while they appeared frequently in the paintings of the time, no other artist rendered them with such accuracy and seemed to have invested them with such pictorial meaning as did Vermeer.

Joan Blaeu, who belonged to a prosperous Amsterdam family of map makers, turned out an extraordinary flow of decorative maps some of which are represented by Vermeer. In 1635, Joan had joined his father's business, published the Atlas Novus (full title: Theatrum orbis terrarum, sive, Atlas novus) in two volumes. Joan and his brother Cornelius took over the studio after their father died in 1638. Joan then became the official cartographer of the Dutch East India Company.

Around 1649 Joan Blaeu published a collection of Dutch city maps named Tooneel der Steeden (Views of Cities). In 1651 he was voted into the Amsterdam council.

A cosmology was planned as the Blaeu's next project, but a fire destroyed the studio completely in February 1672 at the main printing press at Gravenstraat. There are conflicting accounts of the episode, but it is clear that the damage was enormous, destroying not only thousands of paper sheets and printed maps, but also copper plates and metal for type, both of which melted in the heat. Although his other press at Bloemgracht continued, the loss for Joan Blaeu must have been considerable. Joan Blaeu died in Amsterdam the following year.

In 17th-century culture, music and love were closely related and a subject for an endless number of works of art. In particular, music was used metaphorically to suggest the harmony of two souls in love. In a familiar emblem, the immensely popular Dutch writer Jacob Cats shows a lute player in an interior before an open window with the caption "Qvid Non Sentit Amor" (see left). Beside the man lies another lute, unused. The motto explains that in tuning one lute the strings of the other instrument begins to resonate just as two hearts resonate with love even at a distance. In this painting, the woman's music will resonate on the unattended viola da gamba, a common masculine symbol.

Cats' first book, Sinne- en minnebeelden (1618; "Portaits of Morality and Love"), contained engravings with text in Dutch, Latin, and French. Each picture has a threefold interpretation, expressing what were for Cats the three elements of human life: love, society, and religion.

Dutch interior paintings of the time predominantly represent the left side of the room. The origin of this compositional formula may be linked to the fact that artists usually painted with the light source coming from their left, so that the shadow projected by their own hand did not disturb their work (unless they were left-handed). The fact that western spectators read visually from left to right also contributes to the success of the formula: when a group of figures is located on the left of the image, we read that element as the beginning of the composition, allowing our imagination to extend into the space in a rightwards direction.

While painting, Vermeer probably positioned himself near a second window distanced away from the subject which cast sufficient light on his canvas and working area. The structure and disposition of the windows in the Woman with a Lute are probably analogous to that of The Music Lesson which may be a fairly accurate portrayal of Vermeer's studio. However, the painting's dim lighting scheme would seem incompatible with an eventual second window opened wide enough to allow incoming light sufficient for the purpose of painting. Most likely Vermeer partially isolated the illuminated working area from the scene he was portraying by use of a hanging curtain similar to the one seen in The Art of Painting.

The Golden Age witnessed a profound evolution in the function of the home and its furnishing. Houses began to be filled with a great range of sophisticated goods: elaborately carved linen cupboards, tables of all sorts including extendable tables, tea tables and gaming tables to say nothing of imported Turkish carpets, Chinese porcelain, Venetian mirrors, Japanese lacquer-work and quilts from India. Local production, spurred by foreign competition, also soared in variety and quality far beyond anything seen before.

Late medieval furniture tended to be heavily constructed and limited in number. There were only three basic types of seatings: the simple bench (at times with storage capacities) a small three-legged stool (driestal) and in wealthier homes, a large, throne-like arm chair for the head of the family.

In the 17th century, the Spanish chair could be found in almost any home. It was elegant, lighter and more comfortable than previous seatings. Many modern notions of domestic life evolved in the Netherlands in this period: devotion to family life, a sense of privacy and pride which were reflected in a notable order and cleanliness typical of the new Dutch household. However, historian A.J. Schuurman argued that the concept of home comfort as we know it today, only was fulfilled later in the 19th century with the introduction of the stove and gas light which significantly improved the quality of daily life. The depictions of thousands of comfortable Dutch interiors seems to be somewhat at odds with Schuurman's opinions.

Another popular piece of furniture which can be found in Vermeer's painting was the extendable oak table, which appears an infinite number of times in Dutch interior paintings. Its characteristic bulbous legs can be made out with some difficulty in this work. To the left is an exemplar in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.

Throughout the centuries the lute has been one of the most frequently depicted instruments with the largest variety of iconographical interpretation.

The lute is rich not only in repertoire but in symbolism. Its refined sound has given it courtly associations in East and West. Conversely, it could be an emblem of lust or lasciviousness: in the hands of an older man it symbolized scandal and degeneracy.

Duet
Hendrick Terbrugghen
1628
101 x 81 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

If the lute's sensuous and delicate tones evoked the pleasures of love, the fleeting nature of its sound, and the physical fragility of the instrument made it a fitting emblem of transience and death: it is often included, sometimes alongside a skull, in Dutch still life paintings of the Vanitas variety, illustrating the vanity of worldly existence.

On the other hand, the lute with its multiple courses (pairs of strings which have to be carefully tuned) could symbolize the concord and harmony in matrimony and family made evident by numerous family portraits with musical instruments.

In this painting, Vermeer chose not to give a precise explanation for the woman's meditative attitude as she pauses to tune the lute, preferring instead to suggest a mood that has universal resonances. However, he provided two indications that the woman's musing revolves around a distant lover: the map of Europe, which may well allude to foreign travels; and the bass viol dimly visible under the table. The presence of this second instrument (the viola under the table) relates to an emblem by Jacob Cats, which describes metaphorically how the resonance of the strings of one musical instrument are felt in another, just as the heartstrings of two lovers sound as one, even when they are separated.

Unfortunately, due to the poor state of conservation of this picture, none of its details, which were so lovingly portrayed by a host of Dutch painters, can be made out. All indications of the instrument's strings or frets have entirely disappeared and the delicately carved ornamental soundhole has been reduced to a few unintelligible smudges of paint.

Self-Portrait as a Lutenist
Jan Steen 1652-55
55 x 44 cm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Until the invention of the piano, the lute was the dominant solo instrument. Shakespeare was only one of many writers of his day who attributed to the lute the power to transport the listener into a kind of ecstasy; for throughout the Renaissance the lute's ravishing tone made it the most esteemed and admired of all musical instruments. The fame of the greatest players spread through all Europe, and the doors of royal courts and palaces were open to them (a number were consequently employed as spies) while instruments by the most famous makers could fetch astronomical sums.

It is not hard to comprehend the appeal of the instrument. Light and portable, a harmonizing instrument cheaper and easier to maintain than keyboards, it was (and is) enormously versatile; it was used to play dance music, popular tunes, arrangements of vocal music and song accompaniments, and soon generated a solo repertoire of its own, in the form of preludes, passemezzi (a sort of Renaissance twelve-bar blues) and the most refined and expressive fantasias.

The lute had been painted an almost innumerable number of times in European painting. Other than being a continual source of iconographical inspiration, the lute was frequently used as a training ground for learning the intricacies of drawing objects in perspective. Examination of Dutch genre works in particular show that a number of painters clearly kept it as a studio prop and, naturally, a few (certainly Jan Steen—see left) must have actually played it. In some cases, an artist featured the same lute in several paintings. Lutes or even theorbos appear as part of studio furniture in self portraits as well. For example, in Michael Sweerts An Artist's Studio, a lovely Italian theorbo (cloesely related to the lute) lies propped in one corner.

There exist many 16th-century engravings which show the lute being drawn, usually in the difficult three-quarter or end-on views (the full face view of the soundboard is relatively straightforward to draw), and at times with the aid of camera obscura or other optical devices utilized by artists of the time. The lute was also an important ingredient in Vanitas painting which represented the transient nature of life. At times the ephemeral nature of music was conveyed in an even more graphic manner via a broken string or two, or the instrument portrayed face down with obvious finger marks in heavy dust on its glossy back ribs.

Sarabande [4.99MB], Jean Mercure (c. 1600-1660)

performed by Thomas Berghan
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/tom/

Canaris [4.16 MB]

from the M.L. Lutebook, 26r
performed by Thomas Berghan

A former bass lute, ca. 1600,
probably built by the Paduan
lutemaker Wendelin Tieffenbrucker,
converted 1734 into a 13-course
Baroque lute by the German
lutemaker Thomas Edlinger,
working in Prague. National Music Museum,
Vermillion, South Dakota (Ex coll.
Carl Des Fours Walderode,
Hrubý Rohozec Castle, Bohemia,
Czech Republic).

The Lute

The name and form of the European lute derives from its early ancestor, the Arab "al 'Ud," literally meaning "wood," probably because the instrument is almost entirely made of various kinds of wood.

Early forms of the lute's ancestors - in various forms and sizes, often with long necks - were found in the former Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (c. 2nd millenium B.C.), later in Egypt. The short-necked lute appeared at first in East Asia (China, 5th century A.C.) and as the 'Ud in Arabia (7th-8th century). From there it was brought to Europe, probably by the Moors to the Iberian Peninsula (8-9th century), later (c. 1100) by the Saracens to Sicily. The form of the European lute with the turned back pegbox as a substantial characteristic (presumably to help hold the low-tension strings firmly against the nut) had been developed in Spain during the 13th century. By the 14th century it was widespread throughout Italy and had made significant inroads into the German-speaking areas.

From the 15th to the early 18th century the lute was the most favoured instrument, at first for the accompaniment of the singing voice or part of the continuo, but with the appearance of the great lutenists and composers (Vincenzo Capirola, John Dowland, Alessandro Piccinini or Nicolaes Vallet) and the publication of numerous lutebooks also used as a solo instrument.

The Western lute has a pear-shaped vaulted back (later rather longer and smaller, like an almond), made up of a number of separate ribs of wood, bent over a mould and glued together edge to edge to form the deep rounded body. At the back of the top end of the neck the housing for the pegbox is cut out, with the slender tapering hardwood tuning-pegs inserted from the sides.

From c. 1580 onwards almost all surviving lutes have separate ebony fingerboards, set flush with the soundboard. The soundboard or belly is a flat thin plate of softwood, often made from two halves joined along the centre line. An ornamental soundhole - the 'rose' - is carved into the soundboard (rare instruments may have several little roses). The bridge, holding the strings, was consistently made of a light hardwood and was glued directly to the surface of the soundboard.

The strings, made of gut, are arranged in pairs - the courses, being tuned either in unison or at the octave. The number of courses grew from four or five in the Middle Ages up to fourteen in the Baroque era, requiring some innovations in the lute's structure.

The medieval lute mainly served for the accompanying chords to the songs and was plucked with a quill as plectrum. During the Renaissance era the players begun to pluck the strings with the thumb and the following three fingers, thereby gradually turning from the earlier "thumb-in" position to the "thumb-out" position gaining a greater stretch to be able to reach the encreasing number of courses.

The Lute Player is one of Vermeer's most simple yet powerful compositions. The robust play of four rectangles frames a split-second moment of the life of a finely dressed young girl caught glancing out the window as she distractedly tunes (not plays) her lute. The air of fragility which surrounds her slight figure cannot be fully appreciated by those viewers who are not familiar with the melancholy strains of the lute as well as the astounding lightness of the instrument itself whose body is composed of thin strips of wood artfully glued together.

The large wall map of Europe occupies the upper right-hand quarter of the composition. The ball of the hanging rod fits neatly into the crevice between the girl's hairdo and fur trim of her jacket. The upper tip of the lute's neck is caressed by the horizontal black hanging rod.

Below, the massive dark area created by the chair, table and tablecloth contemporarily protects and sustains her from below as it offsets the map's presence. A long vertical rectangle described by the window and its cast shadow is echoed to the lower right by a chair set flush to the wall.

Vermeer's girl remains wonderfully enclosed in a balanced pictorial world which she will inhabit for our contemplation for many years to come .