The Baroque Art Style Movement started in the seventeenth century. This period was characterized by complex art manner which is stimulated by the impulse to tap the different “emotional states” which is dramatically shown “by appealing to the senses. ” The dominant features of this period were “grandeur. sensuous profusion. play. verve. motion. tenseness. emotional exuberance. and a inclination to film over distinctions” ( Pioch. 2002. “Baroque” ) . The Dutch were one of those who perfected this peculiar manner and they have generated some of the critically acclaimed Baroque chef-d’oeuvres in art history.
Jan Vermeer. Jan Steen and Gabriel Metsu were merely three of the Masterss of Dutch picture who have vastly contributed to the development of the humanistic disciplines in the Netherlands. Vermeer’s Woman Keeping A Balance. Steen’s The Drawing Lesson and Metsu’s Young Woman Reading A Letter were some of the celebrated creative activities that have embodied the “novelty of genre Dutch pictures. ” These art pieces were instantly accepted by the populace because they resembled an “honest and materialist art” that highlighted art as an “end in itself and non as a mere vehicle for stressing values from other kingdoms of human idea.
” More so. these pictures focused on a common subject which is the word picture of domestic day-to-day life wherein adult females where the cardinal characters. The creative persons used this subject to stress that the places were non simply constructions but besides the foundation of ethical motives in the society. In add-on. the function of adult females in the pictures was intended to assist convey repose to the viewing audiences in order for them to easy accommodate to the overpowering alterations that were introduced in the seventeenth century ( cited in Janson. 2008. “The Capable Matter of Dutch Domestic Interiors” ) .
Jan Vermeer was an craftsman who is known for his hallmarks of cunning drama with light and colour. inclusion of artworks with poetic quality and the geographic expedition of spacial relationships. The camera obscura was the tool he used add a realness factor to his pictures ( Pioch. 2002. “Vermeer. Jan” ) . In Woman Keeping A Balance. Jan Vermeer illustrated a immature adult female keeping a brace of empty weighing graduated tables who was likely traveling to mensurate the mass of the valuable stuffs placed on the tabular array.
Furthermore. other elements were besides harmoniously integrated in the graphics such as the picture of the Last Judgment which signified a Christian scriptural event ; the deliberation graduated tables which symbolized justness ; the light coming from the window suggested religious enlightenment and the mirror in forepart of the adult female represented vanity. All of these elements exemplified the significance of defying enticement of material things and populating reasonably in order to obtain redemption ( National Gallery of Art. 2008. “Vermeer” ) .
Meanwhile. Jan Steen was branded as one of the most productive painters of the Dutch art scene. He was known for his “versatility. profusion of word picture. ingeniousness in composing. adept use of colors” ( Janson. 2008. “Seven Dutch Masters: Jan Steen” ) . The Drawing Lesson captured the scene of an art teacher learning a immature male and a beautiful immature lady most likely about pulling. The art studio was filled with a assortment of art gear that were strewn all over the topographic point. There were bare sculptures. pigment coppices. easels and other art stuffs.
Amour propre was besides represented through the presence of “a laurel garland. a skull. vino. a fur muff. a book. a luting. and a pipe” to leave Steen’s message that popularity and life are non lasting in the physical universe. This unsophisticated ordinary scene is a symbolic representation of the lives of creative persons and the nature of their profession ( J. Paul Getty Trust. “”The Drawing Lesson” ) . Furthermore. another Dutch painter who made a grade in the field of Baroque art was Gabriel Metsu who was besides a boy of a painter.
He founded the Leiden painters guild where he learned to make genre scenes that showed the “influences of Nicolaes Maes. Gerrit Terborch and the Delft school. ” More so. “his technique evolved from the rather loosely painted Leiden plants to the punctilious fjnschilder mode of his ulterior Amsterdam years” ( Janson. 2008. “Seven Dutch Masters: Gabriel Metsu” ) . In Metsu’s picture of Woman Reading a Letter. shows a adult female reading a missive likely from a suer or a male correspondence.
Actually. this picture is a continuance of another Metsu picture called Man Writing a Letter and when these two pieces are interconnected. a narrative of wooing between a adult male and a adult female is established. Meanwhile. “the maid’s fleeting motion contrasts with the concentration of the immature adult female who. one senses. will non travel until she has finished reading the missive. ” Love was besides smartly symbolized in the picture which is in the signifier of the seascape picture mounted on the wall which likely was directed to stand for the hazards involved in holding relationships ( Web Gallery of Art. 1996. “Metsu. Gabriel” ) .
In footings of aesthetic qualities. the three pictures showcased a assortment of distinguishable elements including colour. visible radiation. texture. lines. and brushstrokes. In Woman Keeping A Balance by Vermeer. the creative person combined all aesthetic elements to bring forth one keen image. Vermeer employed darker sunglassess of colour but speech patterns of blue. xanthous and white were seeable to avoid humdrum. More so. the light came from merely beginning which was at the window that straight illuminated the calm face of the adult female.
Since this picture symbolically suggests populating a balanced life. the compositional lines proportionately dissected the whole image that emanated uniformity and a sense of infinite. The technique used by Vermeer for his brushstrokes was impasto wherein he dumbly put pigment on the canvas to do shots utilizing a paintbrush finished by thin glazes. In add-on. played with camera obscura “to create a mirrorlike highlight” as seen on the pearls on the tabular array which were painted with two beds of colour.
Overall. these elements: the dark colourss. the extraneous lines. impasto brushstrokes. the objects that surround the adult female like the balance and picture of the Last Judgement. all “reinforced the subject of religious moderation” ( National Gallery of Art. 2008. “Vermeer” ) . Many different objects and elements were incorporated in The Drawing Lesson by Steen. Every object has a corresponding significance and significance. The colourss of brown. pink. Grey. blue and ruddy were finely subdued to seamlessly engage the assortment of objects in the image.
In add-on the colourss. lighting and the arrangement of the objects were really strategic that despite the many elements present. the picture did non look littered. More so. each object included in the picture suggested a symbolical significance. the spectator merely needs to look closely and seek to grok the message of Steen. “Typically Steen gives a grade of information about single characters. but leaves the spectator to chew over the specific turns of the narrative. and to look up to the creative person for his clever allusions” ( Wiseman. “Dutch and Flemish Art” ) . The focal point of the picture was the instructor and his pretty immature pupil.
The pastel colourss of pink and blue contrasted by the gold and dark ruddy colourss emphasized the immature adult female and her frock which suggested that she is blue in nature. While the art instructor was depicted in an ordinary garb to demo that he is a common man seeking to interrupt into the sole circle of the rich by learning their kids how to do art. In the place of the creative person. the immature adult female and the male child. it could be drawn that there exist a particular relationship between the instructor and his student and that the other pupil notices their secret “love matter.
” However. this reading was non confirmed by Steen. He wanted his graphicss to insinuate different messages depending on the viewer’s perceptual experience. For Woman Reading a Letter Metsu wanted to state a narrative of love. play and expectancy. This picture was clearly the continuance of Metsu’s other picture called Man “Writing a Letter. ” Compared to the two old graphicss. this one had been brilliantly illuminated and the dominant colourss were of light sunglassess and chromaticities.
At first glimpse. one may believe that this is a empyreal scenario but if one would look closely and analyse the objects that surround the adult female. one can recognize that this picture suggests otherwise. The placid face of the adult female reading the missive is contradicted by the helter-skelter seascape painting on the wall. Besides. the dropped shoe and the disquieted place of the amah support the theory that something bad might hold happened to the adult male who sent the missive. Every facet of this picture had been cunningly incorporated to state a agitative narrative.
