The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours
The Walrus|September/October 2024
New techniques reveal hidden details in the Dutch master’s paintings
- ADNAN R. KHAN
The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours

WHEN Frederik Vanmeert stands in front of a Johannes Vermeer painting, the temptation to go close is ir resistible. In Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, where he works as a heritage scientist, it's not hard to satisfy this craving for intimacy. Viewers may, if the moment moves them, lean in within millimetres, though the security guard will likely wag a disapproving finger.

Still, even millimetres are an interminable chasm for Vanmeert. He's seen Vermeer's work in finer detail than most at the microscopic level, down to the crystal latticework of the pigments used by the seventeenth-century Dutch painter. "I get drawn closer to, say, this area here--the dark area of the lady's dress," Vanmeert tells me, approaching The Little Street, one of only two landscapes the artist is known to have painted.

"It's difficult to decipher which type of fabric Vermeer meant to depict here, and I wonder if this is the original colour." As a chemist in the art world, Vanmeert has spent most of his career trying to understand colour: how it is produced, how it changes over time, how artists prepare the powders and substrates that become the medium through which they speak to us, and, ultimately, why they make the choices they do. If colour is the language of art, Vanmeert is its linguist.

As a scientist, though, he avoids such grand pretensions. It's a touchy subject.

The past two decades have seen an explosion of scientific inquiry into art, from chemical analysis for authentication and identifying forgeries to techniques for restoration and conservation. In the process, scientists have found themselves thrust into some vexing debates. Determining what an artist "intended" can send purists into a tizzy. The artist's intent is irrelevant, they say. Only the work matters, and what the work conveys.

この蚘事は The Walrus の September/October 2024 版に掲茉されおいたす。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トラむアルを開始しお、䜕千もの厳遞されたプレミアム ストヌリヌ、9,000 以䞊の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしおください。

この蚘事は The Walrus の September/October 2024 版に掲茉されおいたす。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トラむアルを開始しお、䜕千もの厳遞されたプレミアム ストヌリヌ、9,000 以䞊の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしおください。

THE WALRUSのその他の蚘事すべお衚瀺
Dream Machines - The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
The Walrus

Dream Machines - The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype

Some of the world's largest companies, including Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet, are throwing their full weight behind AI. On top of the billions spent by big tech, funding for AI startups hit nearly $50 billion (US) in 2023.

time-read
10+ 分  |
July/August 2024
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
The Walrus

MY GUILTY PLEASURE

MY CHILDREN are grown, with their own partners, their own lives.

time-read
3 分  |
September/October 2024
The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours
The Walrus

The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours

New techniques reveal hidden details in the Dutch master’s paintings

time-read
6 分  |
September/October 2024
Repeat after Me
The Walrus

Repeat after Me

TikTok and Instagram are helping to bring Indigenous languages back from the brink

time-read
8 分  |
September/October 2024
Smokehouse
The Walrus

Smokehouse

I WAS STANDING THERE at the corner, the corner where the smaller street intersects with the slightly wider one.

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
How Could They Just Lose Him?
The Walrus

How Could They Just Lose Him?

The Huronia Regional Centre was supposed to be a safe home for people with disabilities. Then, amid suspicions of abuse at the facility, twenty-one-year-old Robin Windross vanished without a trace

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
Prairie Radical
The Walrus

Prairie Radical

How conspiracy theorists splintered a small town

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
The Walrus

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

Scott Moe rose quietly through the ranks. Now the Saskatchewan premier and his party are shaping policies with national consequences

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
The Accommodation Problem
The Walrus

The Accommodation Problem

Extensions. Extra exam time. Online everything. Addressing the complex needs of students is creating chaos on campus

time-read
10+ 分  |
September/October 2024
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
The Walrus

MY GUILTY PLEASURE

I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.

time-read
3 分  |
July/August 2024