Johannas "Jan" Vermeer (yo HAH nus "YAHN" vur MEER) usually only included one or two people in a picture. He depicted people doing everyday things, and most of the settings were indoors. Women were his favorite subjects. He frequently had a window in his paintings. In our featured work "The Lacemaker" you can see how her handwork is illuminated by the sun streaming in through a window.(See examples of handmade lace.)

The Lacemaker by Johannes Vermeer hangs at the Louvre. It is a small painting, and to see it, you need to get fairly close. Fortunately, the linked image from the Louvre lets you see it almost as well as you could see it in person, if those people in front would just move on. The girl is set against a blank wall, probably because the artist sought to eliminate any external distractions from the central image. As with his The Astronomer (1668) and The Geographer (1669), it is obvious that the artist undertook careful study before he executed the work; the art of lacemaking is portrayed closely and accurately. Vermeer probably used a camera obscura while composing the work: many optical effects typical of photography can be seen, in particular the blurring of the foreground. By rendering areas of the canvas as out-of-focus, Vermeer is able to suggest depth of field in a manner unusual of Dutch Baroque painting of the era.

There is a woman making lace. She wears nice clothes, with a lace collar of her own, and what to my eye is a complicated hairdo. She is totally focused on her work, a work we cannot see. What we do see are the tools of her trade, pins and bobbins, different colored threads, wood blocks on which the work sits, her work desk. There is a book near her work, with two tools whose purpose I do not know. The space is peaceful.

"The Lacemaker" brings the subject dramatically to the foreground. As a result, the viewer is drawn into a powerful emotional engagement with the work. Although the composition is quite shallow, there are different depths of field that draw the viewer into the canvas. The forms nearest the eye are unfocused, which encourages the viewer to pass on to the more distinctly defined middleground.

The intimacy is accentuated by the small scale, personal subject matter, and natural composition. The lacemaker's total preoccupation with her work is indicated through her confined pose. The use of yellow, a dynamic, psychologically strong hue, reinforces the perception of intense effort. Contrasts of form serve to animate the image. For example, her hairstyle expresses her essential nature - both tightly constrained and, in the loose ringlet behind her left shoulder, rhythmically flowing. Another strong contrast exists between the tightly drawn threads she holds and the smoothly flowing red and white threads in the foreground. The precision and clearness of vision demanded by her work is expressed in the light accents that illuminate her forehead and fingers.

The diffused ocular effect of the foreground objects, especially the threads, was definitely derived from a camera obscura image. Vermeer used the informal, close framing of the composition suggested by the camera obscura to accentuate the realistic, immediate impact of the painting. Contemporary Dutch painting portrayed industriousness as an allegory of domestic virtue, While the inclusion of the prayer book pays fealty to this theme, it is a secondary concern to the depiction of the handicraft of lacemaking, and, in the highest sense, the creative act itself. Once again, Vermeer succeeded in transforming a transitory image into one of eternal truth.

Lacemaking was a popular activity in the Netherlands back in those times. It required quite some concentration, though, captured in the maid’s expression that seems to be completely absorbed by her work. The pale, empty wall in the background and her yellow shawl, which contrasts with her blue dress and the pillows in the foreground naturally, drives the attention of the viewer to her fingers and illustrates the high level of concentration needed for lace making. The Lacemaker is one of the paintings which gave way to the notion that Vermeer made use of the camera obscura: The pillow’s proportions are accurate – when it comes to be compared with a photography taken from this very point of view. Yet, such accuracy was rather unusual for painters of those times, as well as the blurry foreground of the painting, which it typical for photographed pictures.