Annual Report 2010 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Furnishings which frequently
appear in Vermeer’s paintings
of interior scenes
sible to adopt the position of the painter and then compare
one’s visual impression with the actual painting. For
this experiment, professors, lecturers and students at the
Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden had created a
walk­in reconstruction of the room depicted in Vermeer’s
painting, including all its fittings and a lifesize figurine
wearing a costume modelled on that of the Girl Reading a
Letter. This made it possible for the first time to test scientific
hypotheses concerning Vermeer’s spatial, lighting and
composition concept by means of experimentation, and
to present the findings in a way that was comprehensible
to the general public. The work was based on extensive
material and pictorial analysis conducted by the art historians
and restorers of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden and on mathematical calculations and computer
simulations carried out at the Technische Universität
Dresden. The starting point, the approach taken and the
findings from the work on and with this reconstructed
room were presented in detail in the exhibition catalogue.
Accompanying programme
The exhibition was accompanied by a wide­ranging programme
of events. In a joint project between the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the Volkshochschule
(adult education centre) Dresden and the Hochschule für
Bildende Künste Dresden entitled “Im Prisma des Vermeer”
(In the Prism of Vermeer) a number of evening talks
were held on painting and the painting techniques used
by this artist, on issues of perspective and spatial arrangement,
as well as on the reconstruction of the room in the
“Girl reading a Letter at an Open Window”, 1659
a combination of works of art
and explanatory exhibits
exhibition. Guided tours and art conversations, as well as
educational events for school classes, viewings for senior
citizens and special guided tours for visitors with hearing
and sight impairments, elucidated the early works of
Vermeer from various points of view.
In association with the Hochschule für Bildende Künste
Dresden, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden also
produced the DVD “Blaue Punkte auf blondem Haar” (Blue
Dots on Blonde Hair). This 36­minute film presents investigations
and experiments concerning the working process
of Jan Vermeer.
The exhibition demonstrated how, with stylistic confidence
and self­assurance, Vermeer adopted influences
from a wide variety of artists from Italy and from the
North and South Netherlands, for example, and how upon
this basis he developed his own compositions to achieve
a highly idiosyncratic and unusual effect. At the same
time, the works of this young and open­minded artist,
who enjoyed experimenting, already bear the characteristics
which were to become so decisive in determining his
mature style, such as his exceptional ability as a painter
of figures, his intense interest in the effect of light and his
preference for a reflective atmosphere of calm in his pictures.
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