Paula Chateauneuf: Whenever I see a Vermeer painting of musicians, I have this wonderful
feeling of calm.
It's a visual representation of the way you feel when you hear a lot of this music
Pavlo Beznosiuk: I find that actually hear music, sounds crazy, but I do, looking at
those paintings I do hear distant strains of melody.
Betsy Wieseman: One thing that sets Vermeer off from many his contemporaries is the way
in which he engages the viewer's attention.
In the woman standing at the virginal we see a very elegant, well dressed, very proper
young woman with her hands on the keys.
She's turned to look at the viewer, as a way of inviting the viewer into the scene.
And if we look in the background we see a little Cupid holding up a single card.
This was a symbol for the preference for the love of one over the love of many, so essentially
an advocate for monogamy.
This is a woman who is just looking for one person to come and join her
The woman seated at a virginal is often seen as a pendant to the woman standing at the
virginal.
The two paintings are playing with contrasting ideas of love.
In the woman seated at a Virginal we see a painting of a procuress, of love for sale,
not a very honourable form of love but a more mercenary form of love.
There's a viola da gamba in the foreground suggesting that she's waiting for someone,
presumably a man, to come pick up the instrument and join her in harmony.
The guitar player is such a wonderful example of Vermeer's unique ability to combine stillness
and sound.
The woman herself is the picture of stillness until we look at her hands and the strings
of the guitar.
It seems as if they've just been plucked and they're still vibrating so he's just very
subtly interjected that note of sound.
The composition of the guitar player is very unusual.
It almost seems that the woman is being pulled away from us outside of the picture frame.
There's something that has caught her attention
She's quite a well to do young lady, quite fashionable.
Maybe a little risqué because some of the repertoire for the guitar was quite daring
for the time.
Paula Chateauneuf: People thought the guitar was the devil's instrument.
And the devil was sort of coming through guitar music and influencing youth and making them
touch hands when they danced.
Betsy Wieseman: One of the reasons why I think Vermeer is so effective in his musical depictions
is not so much for what he puts in the paintings but for what he takes out.
The small painting of a woman seated at a virginal is in many respects an absolute distillation
of what Vermeer was trying to do.
I have the sense that the woman has just lifted her fingers from the keys, and it's that moment
of suspended silence and its absolute perfection.
I think Vermeer's musical subjects are really indicative of him as a complete artist.
He is allowing space for the sound of the music and for us to activate all of our senses
not just sight but sound as well.
ENDS