Vermeer and music at the National Gallery

The National Gallery's currently has three exhibition on the go. I saw all three in one visit, starting with Vermeer and music.

 

I now realise I had completely failed to realise why music is such a common subject in sixteenth-century Dutch painting. It had allegorical significance: music could represent transience (the music dies away), making musical instruments a valuable component in vanitas paintings, still lifes which are read as reminders of the transience of human life (an example opens the exhibition). Music could stand for hearing in representations of the five senses. Its measured time could stand for moderation and temperance.  Its social significance was even more important. As the Republic did not have a court, music was mainly the province of middle class families who could afford their own instruments, so the association of harmony with music was reflected in a democratic, companionable form of music making. Printed song books became works of art and were popular gifts. Music making was one of the few ways in which young middle class men and women could meet unchaperoned. All this made performing music a very useful social skill, not least as an opportunity to show one's taste and accomplishment (but one should not be too good, in case one was mistaken for a professional musician). As music was considered intellectually superior to painting, references to music helped painters to enhance their social status. No wonder musical subjects were so popular.

 

A number of very fine and often highly decorated contemporary musical instruments are displayed - I knew Cremona was top for violins, but I had no idea London was the place to go for viols. This was a show where I bought the audio commentary for once, as it was obvious hearing the actual music would be a must, although the spoken commentary wore its learning very lightly and was very informative (no, I'm not getting a commission!).

 

The show builds up to the Vermeers via a series of paintings by his contemporaries, who make good use of the storytelling possibilities of using music as a subject. Jan Steen for example has two paintings, one of which shows a very prim young lady at a harpsichord accompanied by a rather less prim man who is waiting to receive a large lute so he can join her, and perhaps break down her reserve a little, the other seems to be of professional strolling players of a much lower social class and with a more matter of fact attitude to music. These are works from the National Gallery's own collection, plus a painting by Gerrit Dou on loan from Dulwich. These paintings also yet again demonstrate the incredible facility of the best Dutch painters in rendering fabrics and other inannimate objects in paint.

 

Finally, the Vermeers - five of them, and since only 35 Vermeers are known, this amounts to one seventh of his entire output. There is a small painting (A young woman seated at a virginal) from a private New York collection, and four larger paintings: two from the National Gallery's collection (A young woman standing at a virginal and A young woman seated at a virginal), one from the Royal Collection (The Music Lesson), and one (The Guitar Player) from Kenwood House in Hampstead, part of the Iveagh Bequest and only on loan because of refurbishment works. In other words, this particular group will not be seen again.

It's interesting to see how the main four paintings almost look like a set when hung together: similar size, all of poised young women who do not obviously entice, yet do not repel either. The following room examines Vermeer's technique based on microscopic analysis of the paintings: it turns out he makes extensive use of the expensive blue pigment lapis lazuli and "green earth", which impart cool tones to the works and add to the enigmatic feel; all the paintings look as if something might be about to happen - but what? It is this, to my mind, that marks him out from contemporary Dutch painters, who are making a much clearer statement about what is going on. Vermeer is the master of the captured moment where life pauses before taking one turn or another.