EXAMPLES: Two Student Papers

The Impulse of Documentary-Fiction

INTRODUCTION

If a documentary film is created using fictional elements can it be called a documentary?   Can any combination of truth and fiction be considered true simply because the artist says it is true?  What is the impulse behind a documentary that uses fiction? These questions are entangled within an emerging genre of cinema that is essentially a hybrid of documentary and fiction, recently referred to as ‘documentary-fiction.’1

The expected resistance and yet to be time-tested acceptance of this new form of documentary by filmmakers, viewers, and critics calls for a closer look.2  Audiences and cinema makers alike are most accustomed to the formula of documentary that is rooted in Western thought and measured against scientific truths.3  As documentary-fiction emerges, viewers and filmmakers are being challenged to reconsider these traditional documentary formulas.  The developing use of fiction in what has traditionally been considered a true, or literal documentary film urges viewers and filmmakers to evaluate what constitutes the truth of documentary cinema. It seems the industry may have to come to understand that documentary films may encompass more than the truth that is governed by scientific rules and regulations, or the presentation of facts and figures for the new genre to be successful.4

Viewers, filmmakers, and critics alike are being asked to accept the possibility that documentaries are an art form as much as they are a record of an event or a person’s experiences.  The acceptance of the documentary’s ability to contain art truth as well as scientific truth can and has begun to create an opportunity for experimentation with documentary film for the filmmakers who create them.  This opportunity is granting documentary filmmakers the freedom to do more than capture the truth; it is giving them the freedom to create and present truth from alternate perceptions and creations of reality, experimentally and untraditionally. Francoise Romand’s film “Mix-Up ou Meli-Melo,” a French film about twins switched at birth, and the highly successful and controversial “What the Bleep!?,” a film that explores quantum theories, from American filmmakers William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, and Mark Vincent, employ uniquely different techniques and methods of creating truth by blending documentary and fiction.5  Arguably, “Mix-Up” looks a great deal like a documentary with simple re-enactments and “What the Bleep” lends itself naturally to unconventional methods due to the complicated subject matter explored in the film. These films have brought the genre further into focus as audiences have been asked to accept the style. Regardless of which technique the filmmakers utilized and their personal motivations, it’s clear that documentary and fiction can blend together successfully.

By examining these new methods - the truth of art vs. scientific truth - and the philosophical motivations of select documentary-fiction films, the potential for others can be explored.  What remains to be seen is whether other films with less complex subject matters or ones that use fiction for more artistic purposes as opposed to temporal necessity, will be accepted.

 

TRUTH & DECONSTRUCTION

    Truth is thought of as the primary characteristic of documentary film.  For on most accounts, the documentary is expected to be true.6 The problem with truth is that not everyone agrees on what is truth - this becomes the primary limitation of the documentary. As a construct, truth tends to bend at will. For example, by Western expectations, certainly American standards, truth is that which is factual, actual, and provable.  Eastern philosophies tend to have a more fluid belief of what is truth, understanding truth to be something that is perceived through the senses and through intuition.7  Enter now the documentary-fiction, and debate of truth enters a paradox.  The very nature of the word “documentary” implies what we are seeing is evidence of truth.8  While the very nature of the word “fiction” implies what we are seeing is make-believe.

    As Jacques Derrida’s boundaryless deconstruction illustrates, in order to accept and understand the documentary-fiction it is imperative that we reconcile our own unwillingness to accept make-believe as truth.9  Derrida’s deconstruction philosophy requires that, in order to find pure truth, one must alter his or her perceptions of what is known.  In other words, deconstruction is concerned with decentering a thing, for the center is often what gives the thing it’s meaning.10  Derrida argued that deconstruction is not a method, a critique, or an analysis of something; rather, it is an event.11  When deconstructing the documentary, we attempt to remove all the preconceptions, truth, and “truth claims”12 upon which the documentary is centered, in an attempt reclaim its potential and to realize that documentary is bigger than its current boundaries rather than to redefine it, which defeats the purpose of deconstruction altogether.13  This reclaims the documentary’s inherent ability to reach limitless truth; thereby, allowing truth to be created as well as captured.

Films, such as What the Bleep, Mix up at Meli-Melo, Empathy14, and The Road to Guantanamo15 are doing this by using fiction and non-fiction together. As these films branch out of the traditional temporal necessity of using fiction as recreation, they stretch and redefine the reenactment altogether, stepping beyond its prescribed borders and creating fictional truth aligned with, and perhaps supported by, factual truth.  In order to meld these two truths, we must consider Fredrick Nietzsche, recount Derrida, entertain the philosophical notions of truth, and break from our own perceptions.16

    Nietzsche opines that humanity has an original, true impulse to create metaphors.17  Capturing events and moments on camera essentially hinders that impulse when filmmakers become bound by what might be called a ‘scientific truth.’18 The documentary story then becomes one centered on truth, as it happens and where it happens, with facts and evidence that lead us to present arguments in story form.19  The problem is that arguments limit us by creating an atmosphere of contentment that further binds us to tradition and limits our metaphor making.20

To be sure, metaphor making has been used before in traditional documentary with the use of the reenactment; but, this has not been done without heavy criticism and careful presentation. The reenactment and the impulse to re-create in the documentary arose out of a necessity to show what could not be captured on film in real time due to temporal or physical restraints.  In line with scientific methods of labeling and categorizing, viewers are often informed that what they are seeing is a re-enactment of something that happened as opposed to the real thing.

Although they have widespread use, reconstructions are not free from their own debate of truth as the scientific truth of the documentary is violated.21  Perhaps, resistance to reconstruction stems from an unwillingness to accept the ‘artistic truth’ or, our impulse to create, that filmmakers employ as they re-create.   When the documentarian, or artist according to Nietzsche, experiments with this impulse to freely create metaphors then the art, the artist, and truth can finally rest in the “creative contentment” to deceive through the use of metaphors “without doing harm.”22 If we accept Nietzsche’s theories about humanity’s instinct to create metaphors as artistic truth, we embrace what is real.23  However acceptable and functional the methods used to capture truth in documentary are, very little room is left to create metaphors of truth through interpretation, imagination, and intuition – something to which art is akin. Artistic truth is not truth that necessarily happened, per se, but carries with it a greater intangible truth such as love.  The Bible is a good example of this principal. Some biblical books consist of stories that reveal moral or metaphorical truths as opposed to scientific truth, which would suggest that it is unlikely the world was created in just seven days. The impulse of the documentary-fiction then, is the impulse to use fiction to create metaphors of truth while simultaneously capturing the real thing.

By the very nature of our humanity, we want to tell and create stories.   Good storytellers will tell you that, even when they tell true stories, they embellish because it makes the story better.  The use of embellishment does not make the experience any less real.  Perhaps what makes an artist an artist is her or his ability to hone in on this impulse to be a creator and to create from that experience, rather than to just capture experience.  This ability comes from a desire to tell the truth of experience by creating experience as opposed to just capturing it and hoping others see and understand it.  Documentary makers gain knowledge, or truth about their subjects and topics through years of interaction and study.  They have the task of conveying that ‘truth’ in viewing time, which could be anywhere from a couple of minutes to several hours.  Therein lies the central and inherent paradox of documentary works – creating has its limitations because of the contradictory and nearly impossible goal to capture objective truth.24 The documentary is based on non-fiction - the goal is to capture truth as objectively as possible – to present the story as it happens, how it happens.  Linked closely to journalism and often mistaken for ethnographic cinema, the documentary label tells viewers that what they are watching is a real, true story.  The people, the places, and the situations are real.  Thus, this label has incredible power to it because viewers trust it.25  

Defining truth for the genre, no matter how open, does not come without problems.  Expectations, constraints, and the steadfast tradition formed by strict definitions of truth, strike hard against an artist’s original impulse and ultimately limits his or her potential and creativity.26

Nietzsche believed that “we are prisoners of our perspective.”27 Perhaps what is required to free us from this creative prison, is an alteration of our perspectives, and an examination of the creative process rather simply the end result.  Only then can we understand how and why the documentary-fiction becomes an art form that can merge the scientific truth of capturing and representing that which already exists with the artistic truth that is brought forth through creative and narrative means.  

 

THE PROCESS OF THE DOCUMENTARY-FICTION

The documentary-fiction creates the potential for filmmakers to blend scientific and artistic truth.  The style provides filmmakers more room to explain, more room to imagine, more room to tell stories, more room to drive home the ultimate truths, than the genre has previously allowed. The debate over reconstruction becomes minor when compared to the tumultuous response to the documentary-fiction. One such reason for this response it that the techniques and motivation utilized in documentary-fiction may or may not stem from the necessity to create, or re-create, because of physical and temporal restraints.  Issues of cost, cultural climate, and audience response also play a role.

Access to people and situations is sometimes limited, so documentary makers often miss important moments.  Documentary makers don’t have access to the recesses of their subjects’ being, where transformation, motivation, and intimate emotions are harbored, so even when a subject recounts an event or expresses a thought on camera, the actual internal experience remains out of reach for the viewer.  Filmmakers often lay witness to the transformation of people over time or see things in people that others might miss.  For example, filmmaker Michael Winterbottom tells us that in making The Road to Guantanamo he saw a discrepancy between the public perception of the Tipton Three and his own perception of them. 28  This perceived contradiction motivated Winterbottom to present the story by interweaving interviews of the actual subjects as they retold their stories with fictional dramatization that illustrated and comported with the subjects’ public perception. Thus, documentaries may not be able to serve as vehicles in the quest for ultimate and intimate truths if they are bound to objectivity.  

We seem to be at a point in our culture where we are starving for examples of human transformations, real experiences, and truth of self.  The rise of reality TV is evidence of that craving.  Empathy, while not a TV show, exemplifies this craving.  The film explores the intimate and complex relationships between psychoanalysts and their patients by weaving a fictional narrative about an actress in therapy with documentary interviews with practicing psychoanalysts.  This interweaving of fact and fiction exposes the psychoanalysts’ struggles in their real experiences, through interviews by an interviewer who, at times, asks rather provocative questions, such as “How is what you do like prostitution?”29  

We can also see and know real experiences through fictitious ones, like the central charter in What the Bleep Do We Know?  What the Bleep, stars Marlee Matlin, who illustrates the practical application of complex metaphysical concepts for viewers who follow her throughout the documentary.  Through the use of her story, presented through fictional scenes, viewers can feel, see, and apply the concepts of metaphysics to their own daily lives that, in turn, provides an opportunity for viewers to digest a more practical truth of the material presented in the documentary as opposed to just the conceptual and theoretical.30

Both Empathy and What the Bleep use actresses to illustrate points through story.  Some might argue both films could have used real persons to guide the films.   While this may be true to a certain extent, the costs associated with monitoring a real life subject for several years with the hope of getting the material that the story requires, could prove cost prohibitive.  Traditional documentaries cost a lot in terms of the time investment required.  Impatient creators, distributors, and audiences want the movies now.  While creating fiction may require additional production costs for the documentary, it has the potential to save time.  For example, in “What the Bleep?” the makers could’ve followed a real person around to all sorts of events as they pondered life and waited for the “‘right footage’” to unfold.  Yet, if you know what you want, why not just create it and get it over with.

 

CONCLUSION

    Unfortunately, many documentary makers view the use of fiction as taboo. “How can it be true if you use fiction?” “Audiences will not trust you.”  “Subjects will not trust you.”  “Isn’t the truth enough?” “How are you objective then?”  What the critics fail to recognize is that documentary has never really been objective. Why not, then, embrace the documentary’s ability to tell the truth – to connect real people, to show real life, to teach, to act - with fiction’s ability to entertain, to teach, to pull us out of ourselves, to suspend disbelief, to make us think, to make us dream, and to encourage us to imagine. Stark reality often has hopelessness about it, while fiction is filled with possibilities.  That is why people go to the movies – to escape their own lives – to dream of the impossible.  If the two can marry, maybe reality will become more hopeful.  

Documentary provides us thoughts mostly as stories are told, parts are shown, and we get glimpses of experiences.  Fiction gives us experiences and stirs our imagination.  Truth is in both of these.  In time, documentary-fiction may also develop a set of metaphor creating methods that will limit it.  As we learn the methods to create in the style of a documentary-fiction, we may bind ourselves to its conventions and rules. However, if an understanding of these impulses and the characteristics of tangential truths can be accepted, then the reality of the documentary can be rendered truer than ever before.  

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 75th Academy Awards Rules For Distinguished Achievements During 2002. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science website. 2002.  26 April 2006. http://oscars.org/78academyawards/rules/rule12.html.

 

Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of Non-Fiction Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Blair Witch Project.  Blair Witch Project online.  2006.  26 May 2006.  http://www.blairwitchproject.com.

 

Bruzzi, Stella.  New Documentary: A Critical Introduction.  London: Routledge, 2000.

 

Bernard, Shelia Curran. Documentary Storytelling for Video and Filmmakers. Oxford: Focal Press, 2004.

 

Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc.  The Rise of Mahayana, The Buddhist World, Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc. website. 2005. 26 April 2006. http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/maha2.htm.

 

Caputo, John, ed.  Deconstruction in a nutshell: a conversation with Jacques Derrida. Fordham: Fordham University Press, 1997.

 

Chicha, Nathalie. “Psychoanalysis on the Couch.”  OffOffOff Film. Review.  2004. 1 May 2005.  http://offoffoff.com/film/2004/empathy.php.

 

Derrida, Jacques.  Of Grammatology.  Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997.

 

Gaines, Jane, and Michael Renov, eds. Collecting Visible Evidence. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

 

Goodhart, Benjie.  “Interviews: Michael Winterbottom on The Road to Guantanamo.”  Channel 4 website.  2005.  1 May 2006.  http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/feature.jsp?V=3&SV=5&id=154599

 

First Run Icarus Films.  “Empathy A Film by Amie Siegel.” First Run Icarus Films.  2004.  1 May 2006.  http://www.frif.com/new2004/empy.html.

 

First Run Icarus Films.  “Empathy Directors Statement.” First Run Icarus Films.  2004.  1 May 2006.  http://www.frif.com/new2004/empy2.html.

 

Hart, Adam. “An Interview with Françoise Romand.” Senses of Cinema. December 2004.  9 Dec. 2005. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/35/francoise_romand.html.

 

Kamuf, Peggy, ed. A Derrida Reader Between the Blinds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

 

Macdonalad, Kevin and Mark Cousins, eds. Imagining Reality: The Faber Book of Documentary. London: Faber & Faber, 1998.

 

Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1991.

 

Penn, Liz. “Empathy Whining and Dining.”  The High Sign website.  2004.  1 May 2006.  http://www.thehighsign.net/archives/review/empathy.html.

 

Powell, Jim.  Derrida for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers, 1997.

 

Renov, Michael, ed. Theorizing Documentary. London: Routledge, Inc. 1993.

 

Rosenthal, Alan, ed. New Challenges for Documentary. California: University of California Press, 1988.

 

Shaner, Pete and Gerald Everett Jones.  Real World Digital Video. California: Peachpit Press, 2004.

Vattimo, Gianni.  Nietzsche An Introduction.  Stanford: Standford University Press, 2002.

Vattimo, Gianni. The End of Modernity. Baltimore, The John Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Winston, Brian. Claiming the Real. California: University of California Press, 1995.

Winston, Brian. Lies, Damn Lies, and Documentaries. London: British Film Institute, 2000.

FILMOGRAPHY

Blair Witch Project. Dir.Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. 1999. DVD. 1999.

Derridra. Dir. Kirby Dick and  Amy Ziering Kofman. Star. Jacques Derrida.  2002. DVD. 2002.

Mix-Up ou Meli-Melo. Dir. Francoise Romand. 1986. DVD. Lowave, 2005.

The Thin Blue Line. Dir. Errol Morris. Videocassette. Miramax Films, 1988.

What the Bleep Do We Know?  Dir. William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, and Mark Vicente. Star. Marlee Matlin. 2004. DVD. 2005.

 

CONNECTIONS TO ART PROJECT

Bust! is a documentary-fiction about women’s relationships to their breasts and has consumed my art project endeavors this year.  The Impulse of the Documentary-Fiction, my research project, was critical to the development and production of Bust! The research provided a historical context for my work, identified key methods and motivations for the genre, and helped me develop a philosophical framework for creating the work.

Rigid rules and traditions have driven much of my art making processes in the past.  My best work has come when I have loosened the reigns on the self-imposed genre regulations and followed my instincts.  Ironically, it seems that by navigating through the historical context and deconstructing the tradition of art making, specifically documentary, I have been able to loosen the reigns around what I create, breaking further from the tradition than even more. This is attributed to the fact that the research has given my own creations a context that I am confident in discussing and debating.   Furthermore, it seem as though really seeing and knowing the context of the rules and traditions in documentary, more specifically documentary-fiction (which is vastly open at this point) has allowed me to relax onto a foundation that is rooted in more philosophical motivations as opposed to technical ones.

Examining the philosophical motivations of the documentary-fiction through my paper influenced my attempts to create a documentary fiction on the screen.  In the entire art-making process, I was prompted to examine my own motivations for and my own perceptions of the truth that I simultaneously wanted to show and create.  Instincts contributed to my desire to make the project work, while the research informed and allowed me to analyze these instincts.  In the past, taking risks in art making where the risk is based on instinct has been fruitless for me.   I have feared that I would not be able to justify my work and that my instincts would somehow fall short of expectation – an ultimate blow to my ego.  This project is my first success at taking instinctual risks since I was ‘schooled’ in film/video making, something I could not have done without the confidence the research provided.  

Identifying some methods and reasons others have used fiction in documentary provided a point of self-comparison and prompted me to examine and understand my own methods.  It also spurred new ideas that has led to further exploration and further questioning that is continuing to cycle and will likely unfold in the art and research yet to come.  The research process itself has given me an untried avenue to explore my instincts both creatively and intellectually, thus providing a sort of safety net for the work I create.

More importantly, beyond the scope of this particular paper and this particular project, the exercise of researching something that does inform my art project and vice versa, has me beginning to develop a creating process that satisfies my artistic and intellectual needs, contributing to more mindful and innate creations. Furthermore, as I’m fascinated by relationships, it should come as no surprise that I have discovered understanding the intricate relationship between research and artwork, further enhances the relationship I have with what I create.  In this manner, I was also prompted to explore my own relationships with myself as director, actor, and storyteller.  

FOOTNOTES

1 Documentary-Fiction as a genre is a term coined by filmmaker Francoise Romand who combined documentary and fiction in her work, Mix-Up ou  Meli-Melo.  In an article about the film and her other work this is said: “…there isn’t a commonly-used term for what filmmaker Francoise Romand has dubbed the “fictional documentary” and “documentary fiction.”” Source: Hart, Adam. “An Interview with Françoise Romand.” Senses of Cinema. December 2004.  9 Dec. 2005. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/35/francoise_romand.html.

2 As the genre emerges there is chatter amongst those in the industry that signifies both resistance and acceptance of the style.  For example,  Empathy a 2003 film by Amie Siegel about psychoanalysts and their patients, has been called “genre-crossing” by Nathalie Chicha, a reviewer.  The same reviewer also says the “blurring of the “documentary” and “narrative fiction” genres more programmatic than inspired” and calls the film “insincere.”  The films distributor, First Run Icarus Films refers to the film as a “inventive mosaic” and “a blend of documentary and fiction drama.”  The distributors website references reviews that call it an “essay,” “avant-garde,” and “quirky.”  Also on the distributors website, the filmmaker calls it “A fiction film. A personal documentary.” The Road to Guantanamo a 2005 Michael Winterbottom film, has been called a “docudrama” and a “campaigning film” for its use of documentary and recounting through fiction.  Sources: Chicha, Nathalie. “Psychoanalysis on the Couch.”  OffOffOff Film. Internet Review.  2004. Last accessed1 May 2005.  http://offoffoff.com/film/2004/empathy.php; First Run Icarus Films.  “Empathy A Film by Amie Siegel.” First Run Icarus Films.  Internet. 2004.  Last accessed 1 May 2006.  http://www.frif.com/new2004/empy.html; http://www.frif.com/new2004/empy2.html; Goodhart, Benjie.  “Interviews: Michael Winterbottom on The Road to Guantanamo.”  Channel 4 website.  2005.  Last accessed 1 May 2006.  http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/feature.jsp?V=3&SV=5&id=154599.

3 While there isn’t one definition of documentary, many critics and makers define the documentary as a true, contemporaneous, recorded event.  This truth is aligned with scientific, evidentiary truth that is provable and factual.  This truth subscription in documentary is often taught in educational institutions as well. For example, in Real World Digital Video, a textbook used in many Video Production classes, Pete Shaner and Gerald Everett Jones state: “A documentary is a fact-based journalistic program – usually without actors or scripted dialogue – intended to inform, persuade, or entertain.” Source: Shaner, Pete and Gerald Everett Jones.  Real World Digital Video. California: Peachpit Press, 2004.

4 This is evidenced in the Erol Morris film, The Thin Blue Line.  The film is the recounting of a police murder and the story of the investigation that led to conviction of an innocent man. The commercial director and award-winning filmmaker uses reenactments and a unique style to tell the story of a police murder and investigation in Texas. The film ultimately helped to free a wrongly accused man of murder. The film is an example of how documentary breaks from tradition and uses symbolism and dramatization that is reminiscent of fiction work, alongside expert interviews.  The film shows multiple sides of the story, beyond the evidence, and uses carefully crafted, almost fictional reenactments to demonstrate witnesses accounts.  Source: The Thin Blue Line. Dir. Errol Morris. Videocassette. Miramax Films, 1988.

5 Mix-Up ou Meli-Melo tells the story of two babies switched at birth.  It has been called a documentary-fiction because of its use of reenactments, investigations, and direction.  Romand is a well established and award winning filmmaker.  What the Bleep Do We Know is a blend of documentary, fiction, and visual effects.  It features character named Amanda, whose story is interwoven amongst documentary elements, mainly interview, as the principals of quantum physics are unveiled.  All three directors have extensive experience in the industry.  This film is a documentary-fiction by my understanding.  Sources: Mix-Up ou Meli-Melo. Dir. Francoise Romand. 1986. DVD. Lowave, 2005. / What the Bleep Do We Know?  Dir. William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, and Mark Vicente. Star. Marlee Matlin. 2004. DVD. 2005.

6 The Academy of Arts and Sciences Rule 12 states: “An eligible documentary film is defined as a theatrically released non-fiction motion picture dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects. It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial re-enactment, stock footage, stills, animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not on fiction.” The rule has remained unchanged since 2001.  In 2000, the rule was number 11 and did not include a theatrical release clause. This definition speaks to the way the industry defines a documentary, with an emphasis on fact and non-fiction, i.e. truth.  Source: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 75th Academy Awards Rules For Distinguished Achievements During 2002, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science website, 2002, available from http://oscars.org/78academyawards/rules/rule12.html; Internet; accessed 26 April 2006.

7 Buddhist tradition teaches about the Four Noble Truths and says there is relative truth and ultimate truth. “Relative truth is conventional or empirical truth - that experienced by the senses, whereas, the ultimate truth is Sunyata which can only be realized by transcending concepts through intuitive insight.”  Source: Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc.  The Rise of Mahayana, The Buddhist World, Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc. website, 2005, available from http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/maha2.htm; Internet; accessed 26 April 2006.

8 In Claiming the Real the “contemporary use of the word document still carries with it the connotation of evidence.” Source: Winston, Brian. Claiming the Real. California: University of California Press, 1995.

9 Jacques Derrida a French intellectual and philosopher delivered a speech at John Hopkins University in 1996 about deconstruction that stirred American academia.  He has written at length about deconstruction and other concepts.  Source: Powell, Jim.  Derrida for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers, 1997.

10 “According to Derrida, all Western thought is based on the idea of center – an origin, a Truth, an Ideal Form, a Fixed Point, an Immovable Mover, an Essence, a God, a Presence, which is usually capitalized, and guarantees all meaning.” Source: Powell, Jim.  Derrida for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers, 1997.

11 Derrida in a letter to a Japanese friend: “…deconstruction is neither an analysis nor a critique and its translation would have to take that into consideration.”  Furthermore, “I would say the same about method.  Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one.”  In continuation, “Deconstruction takes place, it is an event that does not await the deliberation, consciousness, or organization of a subject, or even of modernity.  It deconstructs it-self. It can be deconstructed.”  Source: Kamuf, Peggy, ed. A Derrida Reader Between the Blinds. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

12 “Truth Claims” are claims that a film is truthful and can be supported through evidence and argument. Jerry Kuehl says in his essay Truth Claims, “methods of traditional documentary condemn its practitioners to present only the surface of people or events” in order to maintain that truth.  He also says most films can’t deliver because they only present portions of an individuals “selective version of reality.”  He says by definition films that use enactments and reenactments can’t be considered to make “legitimate truth claims, because whatever claims it makes are filtered through the artifices of actors’ performances and writers’ lines.” Source: Rosenthal, Alan, ed, New Challenges for Documentary, California: University of California Press, 1988.

13 “The very meaning and mission of deconstruction is to show that things – text, institutions, traditions, societies, beliefs, and practices of whatever size and sort you need – do not have definable meanings and determinable missions, that they are always more than any mission would impose, that they exceed the boundaries they currently occupy.” Source: Caputo, John, Ed.  Deconstruction in a Nutshell: a conversation with Jacques Derrida. USA, Fordham University Press, 1997.

14 Empathy is a 2004 film directed by Amie Siegel that uses documentary and fiction.  The film is about psychoanalysts and their patients.  Source: First Run Icarus Films.  “Empathy A Film by Amie Siegel.” First Run Icarus Films.  2004.  1 May 2006.  http://www.frif.com/new2004/empy.html.

15 The Road to Guantanamo is a 2006 film by Michael Winterbottom and combines interviews with recreations.  The film is about the Tipton three, British Muslims captured and sent to Guantanamo. Source: Goodhart, Benjie.  “Interviews: Michael Winterbottom on The Road to Guantanamo.”  Channel 4 website.  2005.  1 May 2006.  http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/feature.jsp?V=3&SV=5&id=154599

16 Fredrick Nietzche was a German philosopher, scholar, and poet.  “Derrida shares with him a skepticism about philosophy in general, but especially its style, and its truth claims.  Derrida, like Nietzche, is aware that we are orisoners of our perspective…”  Source: Powell, Jim.  Derrida for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers, 1997.

17 Gianni Vattimo refers to Fredrick Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and Nietzsche’s “redeploying free artistic creativity as the ‘mastery of art over life’…in which an original impulse towards creating metaphors persists.” Source: Vattimo, Gianni. Nietzsche An Introduction.  Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

18 In traditional documentary, scientific truth presents the facts of the subjects and situations and labels the documentary un-biased, objective, and un-staged. Film theorist, Vivian Sobchack, says in Jane Gaines and Michael Renov’s Collecting Visible Evidence, that documentary is a “film genre characterized historically by certain objective textual features.”  Source: Gaines, Jane, and Michael Renov, eds. Collecting Visible Evidence. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

19 “A story about an imaginary world is just a story.  A story about the real world (that is, a documentary) is an‘argument.’  Source: Winston, Brian. Claiming the Real. California: University of California Press, 1995.

20This is referred to as “Historical Sickness.” As history dominates, creative powers diminish because we are bound to the tradition history lays out. Source: Vattimo, Gianni. Nietzsche An Introduction.  Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

21 So as not to appear contrived, filmmakers who use reenactments will often make clear distinctions between the scientifically provable facts, real footage, and their re-creation through editing techniques, titles, and voiceovers; or, by contributing other technical elements to their creations. The debate over reenactment, or reconstruction, centers around whether the truth depicted is reconstruction or fakery.  Winston says it must be “sincere and justifiable reconstruction” in order to not appear fake. Source: Winston, Brian. Claiming the Real. California: University of California Press, 1995.

22 “The intellect, that master of disguise, remains free and relieved of its usual servitude for as long as it jumbles metaphors ‘with creative contentment’…during a fleeting suspension of the usual rules, when ‘he can deceive without doing harm’.” Source: Vattimo, Gianni. Nietzsche An Introduction.  Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

23 Nietzches says we have an “original impulse to create metaphors – faithfulness to reality by freely creating metaphors.” Source: Vattimo, Gianni. Nietzsche An Introduction.  Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

24 “Documentaries always were forms or re-presentation, never clear windows onto “reality”; the filmmaker was always a participant-witness and an active fabricator of meaning, a producer of cinematic discourse rather than a neutral or all-knowing reporter of the way things truly are,” according to Bill Nichols (essay, “Voice of Documentary”) Rosenthal says in his introduction to the book that “Everything depends on a subjective choice - objectivity is impossible….In short, objectivity is nothing but a pose, a documentary in the end has little to do with the real world but is merely another social fiction.” Rosenthal, Alan, ed. New Challenges for Documentary. California: University of California Press, 1988. Page 49.

25 For example, when the Blair Witch Project, a fictional horror film about students lost and murdered in the woods was released, the makers claimed the film was a documentary.  Thousands flocked to see this low-budget, independent, better than fiction documentary.  A week or so after BWP’s release it was discovered the film was indeed not a documentary, in the traditional sense.  There was no Blair Witch.  There were no lost film students.  There were no murders. However, some of the techniques employed in the movie making process were documentary-like, such as hand-held camera work and no script.  “No script” carries an element of actuality, spontaneity, and therefore requires the filmmakers respond to the unpredictabilities that often arise in documentary.  In Blair Witch, actors were sent into the woods without a script.  They filmed each other responding to situations that were constructed to happen to them - much like Reality TV.  Lines were occasionally fed to them – but they did not know what would happen next.  It in those moments, where they respond, that what we see becomes instinctively real and what plays out on screen becomes a document of that experience – creatively edited and marketed, heavily produced – but a real experience for them none the less. Source: Blair Witch Project.  Blair Witch Project online.  2006.  26 May 2006.  http://www.blairwitchproject.com; Blair Witch Project. Dir.Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. 1999. DVD. 1999.

26In Nietzsche: An Introduction pg.27 “socially established language with its rules and cognitive functions originates as a random fixing and hardening of a particular set of metaphors.” Source: Vattimo, Gianni.  Nietzsche An Introduction.  Stanford: Standford University Press, 2002.

27 “Derrida, like Nietzsche, is aware that we are prisoners of our perspectives, and so both pay attention to the subversive practice of reversing one’s perspective.” Source: Powell, Jim.  Derrida for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers, 1997.

28 “And like I say, one of the most striking things about them, and something we wanted to show people, was that they were just ordinary British teenagers who got caught up in these events.  We were all told that the people in Guantanamo were the most dangerous terrorists in the world, and that’s why it was necessary for America to create this bizarre extra-legal prison, and when we met them they were so ordinary.  So we wanted to show the gap between what you thought people would be like in Guantanamo and the reality of meeting them.” Source: Goodhart, Benjie.  “Interviews: Michael Winterbottom on The Road to Guantanamo.”  Channel 4 website.  2005.  1 May 2006.  http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/feature.jsp?V=3&SV=5&id=154599.

29 Sources: Penn, Liz. “Empathy Whining and Dining.”  The High Sign website.  2004.  1 May 2006.  http://www.thehighsign.net/archives/review/empathy.html.; First Run Icarus Films.  “Empathy A Film by Amie Siegel.” First Run Icarus Films.  2004.  1 May 2006.  http://www.frif.com/new2004/empy.html.

30 Source: What the Bleep Do We Know?  Dir. William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, and Mark Vicente. Star. Marlee Matlin. 2004. DVD. 2005.

Studying Vermeer’s “A Maid Asleep”: Reading a Seventeenth-Century Painting

 

We are entering the gallery for seventeenth-century Dutch masters in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s massive painting collection. The pictures on the walls are primarily large and dark (as one tends to generalize old masters) with the fully lit visages of Dutch people in period dress. We peruse the impressive portraits of Rembrandt and the frolicking figures of Frans Hals, until we see a row of three smaller works in the farthest corner. On first approaching we are struck by the scale of these three works, and our need to peer in on their intimate interior settings. The center painting is ample and invites closer inspection. At 34  x 30 inches, it is dwarfed by the surrounding masters in the gallery, yet it is larger than its two neighbors. The impression is large in feeling—generous. We may be taken in by the warmth of coloration in its umbers, golden ochre, reds and pale yellow—the color rich and sparkling. Focusing, we recognize a mysterious light on a familiar subject. Central is the still figure of a woman at a table in a darkened room, her eyes closed as crescents, and there behind, the luminous glow of a room beyond. The latter suggests possibilities, as yet undetermined. The style of the work is a naturalistic realism, “photographic” almost, lending the painting an immediacy and recognition that traverses the centuries and connects to our own time. There are no bravura brushstrokes, (as in the Hals or Rembrandt) that insist on the mediation of the painter. Rather, the absence of the artist’s hand registers patient observation, again as a camera, recording light through color as it defines form. This lends both distance and intimacy, oddly—as if the more carefully rendered, the more resonant the object—beyond verisimilitude if it is possible. The mood of melancholy pervades in this highly psychological space. The figure sits in a domestic setting, conveying a place of familiarity, again, bringing it into our present. We look at the wall label: Vermeer, A Maid Asleep.

 

After the First Encounter: An initial reading

The female is subtly lit in a darkened room, her head with closed eyes leaning on her hand. The shape of the bodice in her rich red burgundy satin dress with its cleft and punctuating curved white collar, is reminiscent of a heart. This is echoed by the shape of her face with its double-lobed forehead formed by the descending peak of her cap. Brushing by her we are drawn to the light of the “empty” room behind; the progression of door frames lead us in. There, a square dark mirror is the only discernable furnishing (on its distant wall) and a table below it. This space attracts so strongly, we have to back up to return to the setting around her. We may abruptly notice the strange protrusion of the Turkish rug (that so often covers seventeenth-century tables) and its fine detail at the fore of the table. It is in an inexplicable triangle pointing up, almost pressing up against the picture plane. This both obstructs our linear progression toward the woman, and simultaneously points us in. The still life to its left on the table is an amalgam of objects and material, most discernable a jug and a plate of fruit. On closer inspection we make out a wine glass, almost invisible, positioned before the woman. Closer looking yet reveals an overturned amber glass flask before the jug as well as a walking stick or cane. All is a jumble. The back rest of a chair faces us obliquely, with lion-head finials acting as sentinels.1 It too hinders our ability to get too close to the woman. Above her head in the shadows is the corner of a painting—we make out Cupid’s leg and a fallen mask. To the right of the painting hangs a cloak, and the suspended dowel of presumably a map to the right of the doorway.

This painting has light written all over it; the control of the dimmed room in the foreground and the unexplained light source softly illuminating the woman’s beautiful sweet face in the darkened corner. (What are these shadows?) There is the welcoming brightness of the far room, the thin vertical highlights glancing off the two doorframes that, again, form steps into it. Our contemplation suggests a scenario, but also begs questions concerning love, alcohol and the loneliness of a woman in this darkened space. The mood of melancholia prevails. The heart and Cupid referred to, the conspicuous absence of a “lover.” Has he just left? And more questions: How does her being a “maid” fit into the scenario? Is she simply drunk or has the artist intended that she is dreaming? Why the luminous room behind?

 

Investigation and Research

What can we say about the painting based on what we know of Vermeer and his work? So little is documented about Vermeer’s life, his early art training, and his associations, that he has been called the “Sphinx of Delft.”  Most is left to speculation on what little evidence we have. It has been suggested that he had the support of a buyer who owned the larger portion of his production, a bookdealer named Jacobus Abrahamsz Dissius2. With only thirty-six works extant, this becomes significant. Vermeer worked slowly and methodically--very deliberately, as evidenced by his thoughtful compositions. With a documented eleven children to feed, the support of a buyer was key to finance his artistic inquiries and investigations into light.

In relation to his contemporaries in the proximity of Delft, it is probable in this painting of 1657, that Vermeer was inspired by Pieter de Hooch, a painter three years his senior and already a mature artist painting figures set in domestic interiors bathed in sunlight.3 De Hooch was also an innovator in the use of perspective and spatial illusions. The use of a second “mysteriously lit” room in The Maid Asleep is a motif borrowed from artists in the circle of Carel Fabritius called “doorkijkje,” and is often used to provide relief. (Seemingly not so in this Vermeer.) It is suggested that Fabritius, the most talented student of Rembrandt may have trained Vermeer.4 This would have given the latter a direct link to the master of expressing profound human character as well as a great manipulator of light. It is known that Vermeer was introduced to Gerard ter Borch in 1653, an artist who also captured psychological depth and emotional ambiguity and was most prominently known for his depiction of light on satin.5  Ter Borch in his exquisitely rendered compositions, astutely recognized the power of leaving out and concealing something of meaning. He tantalizes the viewer with an intriguing narrative without giving away its conclusion, or even the subject of his pictures at times. This pulls the viewer in, sparks the imagination, and invites participation. For example, in his models’ gestures, he tilts heads slightly, or he views the central character from behind. Things are implicitly suggested, but then left unsaid. Vermeer was undoubtedly impressed.

It cannot be overlooked that Vermeer was also influenced early in his development by the Caravaggists of Utrecht, as reflected most prominently in his first genre painting The Procuress, 1656. In addition to using dramatic lighting, Caravaggio heightens the presence of his figures by cropping them at the waist and placing the viewer immediately in the midst of the narrative action, coming in close—offering no identifiable setting. Unlike De Hooch’s vision of complete figures viewed at a distance in a spacious architectural setting, Vermeer remembers Caravaggio’s lesson and confines the field of vision here to an intimate corner of a room. Figures and objects become large and seemingly near to the viewer, much more akin to real experience (and incidentally, like many photographs), lending a feel of immediacy and the contemporary. This strategy also provides the spatial impediments that both make tension on the picture’s surface with its in and out (close and far) intervals, creating rhythms across the surface, and serves as psychological tropes for feelings: for example, a figure might loom (as the officer in Cavalier and Young Woman, 1657 in the Frick Collection), or an object might become a hurdle in reaching the distant, receded subject.6    

With so few paintings, looking at the chronology of Vermeer’s oeuvre in overview yields some informative observations.7 After three large scale historical paintings that bear little resemblance to his mature work, and one genre painting (The Procuress, as previously mentioned), A Maid Asleep is Vermeer’s first work with a solitary female in the architectural framework of a domestic space, the subject for which he is best known. This painting predates but hints at Vermeer’s subsequent motif of depicting his characters in shimmering light from a left window. (Note the light of the two door frames in the rear as vertical stripes of light and the emanation from the room beyond.) The artist uses a nearly square rectangle as a format throughout his oeuvre. (The proportions are more varied in, for example de Hooch’s work.) This and the visual effect of the extended horizontal and vertical lines of his compositions, lend stability and balance to his themes, offering a surface read of serenity against which to launch subtle disruptions, such as the toppled wine flask. Further, as did many genre painters of the period, the artist shuffles and repeats props such as a chair with lion-head finials (used nine times in his paintings between 1657 and 1666).8 He frequently uses a table and hangs a rectangle behind, be it a map of the Netherlands or a thematic painting. This device with, again, its horizontal and vertical lines, further anchors the composition and lends a slate for allegorical content.

It would appear that Vermeer had two modes of demeanor in his women when it comes to the expression of the eyes: seventeen of his paintings have women with downcast eyes and fourteen of his women look up or out. Surprisingly, nine of those in the latter category look out at us the viewer, directly. The effect, upon examining all the paintings in a serial overview, is that these moments of the woman peering out are poignant. She sparks and hooks us. Taking a closer look at one of the “outward gaze” paintings such as A Lady Writing, 1665, it becomes apparent that the direct contact in stopping us, also makes entering the picture secondary—requiring a willful effort. We begin to see clearly here the push and pull, the ambiguity of Vermeer’s tactics. While the woman is available, she also arrests us from entry into her space. And the recognition of the content of the painting seems instantaneous, yet difficult to maneuver. By contrast, the downcast eyes draw us in empathetically and leave us to wander about the surrounding environment in search of clues for her withdrawal. As in A Maid Asleep, the inaccessibility of the woman with her closed eyes expands the potential for a psychological reading.

 

A Brief Historical Framework: Society and Science

The religious and social mores of  the seventeenth-century Dutch as depicted in Simon Schama’s, An Embarrassment of Riches, brings to life the interesting problem of an affluent society under the sway of Calvinist morality.9 That he was able to engagingly fill a nearly seven-hundred page tome on the subject, attests to breadth of obsessive control and conflict it created at every level of life. In contrast to most genre painters of his day who painted antidotal narratives, Vermeer’s work hints at the prevalent moral issues in his themes without becoming didactic or moralizing. He opens the subject and leaves it to interpretation without commenting. Therefore, The Maid Asleep refers to, for example, the subject of relationship and love, yet makes no judgment or defining statement on the matter. This has been remarkably beneficial to the painting’s popular longevity, leaving each generation to its own reading.

In the area of science, the invention and pioneering of lens usage played a vital role in the vision of the seventeenth-century northern painting. The century was alive with learning from observing a previously unavailable world as seen through magnifying lens. This was equated with new knowledge.10 Advocates for Vermeer’s use of the camera obscura, a lens that focuses rays of light to project an image the artist would like to paint, argue for his usage. They point most prominently to Vermeer’s later work that show the ‘halo’ effects of unfocused highlights—dabs of color that precisely positioned, congeal at a distance from the painting to form a naturalistic image. For example, little dots of white on finials, jugs, and even bread, show up throughout Vermeer’s oeuvre. In support of this proposition, it is a well known fact that Vermeer was familiar with the inventor of microscopes and lens-maker, Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, who lived in Delft and was executor of Vermeer’s will.11 In A Maid Asleep we might look to the remarkable detail of the elaborate Turkish rug that emulates even the weave of the wool, to conjure the possibility of the use of a lens. What is evident is that as with all his borrowings and deployment of devices, Vermeer subjected them to his own incisive vision and goal of conveying human experience.

 

The Art Historical Divide: Reading Dutch Baroque realism, as related to Vermeer

In recent art historical debate, two opposing positions can be represented by two camps. On the one side, Svetlana Alpers, maintains that all seventeenth-century Dutch painting is primarily an art of description influenced by the developing science of optics and mapmaking, and aimed at delighting its audience. She believes meaning is found on the surface. She buys little stock in Vermeer’s pictures for their psychological depth, viewing Vermeer’s most prominent contribution as simply to have painted “distinctive representations of solitary women in the household.” She suggests this removes the women from representations of tension as depicted by other artists (naming Ter Borch).12

The opposing view is represented by Eddy De Jongh. Traditionalists, he says, by contrast look to iconography (as in Italian art), and seek to find meaning somewhere behind the surface of Dutch art through text and emblems.13 He would be likely to agree, for example, that the pose of the woman in A Maid Asleep, seems to refer to another iconographic tradition, the image of Melancholia with her head in hand. We would thereby deduce the woman is not asleep, but rather depressed, “love-sick,” or self-absorbed.14

Today, due to the complexity of Vermeer’s work and the development of art historical scholarship in the area of the Dutch Baroque, scholars would tend not to rely on any one approach as a key, but would take each work on its own ground of  interpretive problems and solutions. Particularly since Vermeer’s work tends to lie open, it defies easy categorization, and its ephemeral meaning seems to only be sublimated by attempts to explain it through rigid constructs.15

 

Investigative Clues: Hidden knowledge

Recent technology, X-radiographs of A Woman Asleep reproduced and discussed in Arthur Wheelock’s book, Vermeer & the Art of Painting, show that a man with a hat originally stood in space of the mysteriously “empty” room beyond, as well as a dog posed looking up at him from the entry. In addition, prominently, grape leaves first lay over the still life (now removed). The wine glass was entered later, presumably in their place.16 This is Vermeer speaking: Apply subtlety and create tension by removing the male presence; Be explicit and build narrative by placing a wine glass before the woman. Due to its transparency, in yet another duality (subtlety/explicitly) the glass of alcohol is barely visible. These changes are truly the strongest evidence that Vermeer faced both a challenge in his transition from history painting to this new more intimate genre, and made tactical decisions to move from a conventional more literal narrative towards a “looser” symbolism, open to associations and intuitive thinking.  

Also hidden from view, is the need to ask the question, what is in a name? Text supplemental to an image unless specifically known to be given by the artist, may serve as much to hinder as help in a reading of a work of art. The use of the title, A Maid Asleep seems only to be used by its current holder, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The preferred title in art historical references is A Woman Asleep. This revision relieves the onus of a class-based identity in the case of the protagonist. Given the visible qualities of the woman’s clothing and pearl earrings, then contrasting these with those of the woman in Vermeer’s later painting, The Milkmaid, it is highly unlikely our woman “asleep” is a maid. The milkmaid is ‘rough’ and simple in dress, by comparison. Her title of “Milkmaid” sticks. In the interpretation of paintings, Alison McNeil Kettering tells us that present day titles may be nothing more than a descriptive phrases introduced in the eighteenth or nineteenth century for marketing. Such additions of text are both leading and misleading.17 And for our uses, Simon Schama’s research shows that Girl Asleep at the Table (his title) was sold in Amsterdam, 1696 under the title, A Drunken, Sleeping Maid at a Table. This would group it with a popular theme of the time, the drunken sleeper, portraying sloth.18 Such discoveries through a little research clearly indicate the argument for a purely intuitive approach to reading paintings is not so straight forward. Informed research contributes.

 

Revisiting the Painting: a structural reading

Now knowing  a bit of the social dynamics at play in the seventeenth century as well as some of the strategies of genre painters during the period, a second approach can be made to the painting. Vermeer surely employs Ter Borch’s manipulation of a work’s psychology. He expands his use of natural light, selectively illuminates his subject or darkens the space for heightened psychological effect. The shadow above the girl falls across the top of the room, associating the Cupid painting with darkness. Further Vermeer was a quick read on the potential for linear perspective, which leads the eye. Here the alignment of objects along a converging line similarly directs the eye. For example, a simple glance at the work reveals a main vector in the negative space, forming a triangle between the upright chair and frontal clump of the carpet. A profusion of fabric seems to be descending into this vector as if it were a vacuum. The left line of the angle runs up the protruding carpet, through the woman’s hand on the table, rapidly along her right side and face, straight through Cupid’s outstretched leg. Even more apparent, the second line follows a path from the left line of the chair-back, through the middle leg of the table in the room beyond, directly to the darkened mirror. Even the cane lying on the table, unannounced, (another article left behind?) points like an arrow to the space behind.

 

Dream-State: Towards a psychological reading

Grant that the woman has fallen asleep. Her passive face would allow this—the picture is of this realm. The figure in the far darkened corner is an object of desire. She has certainly been painted as such. A young woman, unresisting, irresistible, a perfect age, her angelic face (Madonna-like) radiates the freshness of a peach, even slightly plump and unblemished (yet blushing), as lovely as the fruit on the table before her. See, she even glistens with her pearl earrings and halos of light. Ripe for picking. Her judgment is off. She has even upset the wine flask, some blurred spatial perception, a loss of motor control—disorder in this orderly world as made more apparent by the Spartan room beyond. (It glows brightly.) Her modesty is not in check. The bleached (pure) white collar that should be tightly latched has been loosened, and dangles casually about her bodice, framing her cleavage, made all the more prominent by the rippled gathers of her satin sheen burgundy garment. The color of desire: smoldering red, not the brightness of flame, but the after-burn of golden embers peeking through the cover of dark. Or the turbulence under the stasis of water at the waterfall’s edge, small indicators of the current’s power as eddies swirl so subtly on the placid surface, the roar of its descent just beyond. Further, we feel her desire. It’s the loneliness and longing that radiates from a small solitary figure of any darkened room. Yet, backing up here a moment, not only is she in a remote corner, she’s been barricaded in. The eruption of a carpet and the jumble of a still life prove to be so many obstacles, there is no readily available path, and even the lion-head finials stare sternly enough to growl at any forward motion. Is this “look but don’t touch?” In this dream-state, her eyes closed, shut from the world, she is inaccessibly removed. We cannot make contact. The vector between the chair and the table sucks the melting fabric into its hole, threatening to pull down the still life and all its articles with it. And there the half-empty wine glass stands. So follow the path of least resistance; that line that runs quickly and travels deeply to the farthest place. That which is luminous comes easily. Follow it to, ultimately, a darkened mirror—the viewer is stopped and returned to herself—a reflection. As if to say, “do you see yourself?” Awaken.

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

 

Alpers, Svetlana. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. University of Chicago Press, 1983.

----------. “Picturing Dutch Culture.” Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered. Ed. Wayne Franits. Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 57-67.

----------.New York Studio School lecture, New York. 8 March, 2006.

 

De Jongh, Eddy. “The Iconological Approach to Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting.” The Golden Age of Dutch Painting in Historical Perspective. Ed. Grijzenhout, Frans and Heck van Veen. Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 200-23.

 

Hockney, David. Secret Knowledge: rediscovering the lost techniques of the old masters. New York: Viking Studio, 2001.

 

Kersten, Micheal. Delft Masters, Vermeer’s Contemporaries. Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 1996.

 

Kettering, Alison McNeil. “Ter Borch’s Ladies in Satin.” Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered. Ed. Wayne Franits. Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 98-115.

 

Schama, Simon. The Embarrassment of Riches: an Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. New York: Knopf, 1987.

 

Snow, Edward. A Study of Vermeer. Berkley: University of California Press, 1994.

 

Sutton, Peter C.  Pieter de Hooch, 1629-1684. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1998.

 

Weschler, Lawrence. Vermeer In Bosnia. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.

 

Westermann, Mariet. “After Iconography and Iconoclasm: current research in Netherlandish art, 1566-1700." Art Bulletin 84, no.2 (June, 2002), pp. 351-67.

 

Wheelock, Arthur K. Jr. Vermeer and the Art of Painting. Yale University Press, 1995.

----------. Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists Around 1650. New York: Garland Publishing, 1977.

 

 

 

Two Pages Connecting Research to Work Project

 

My research of Dutch genre painting this semester has had an immediate impact on my work. As I have stated many times, I have been largely an intuitive painter more informed by observation and verbal exchanges, than by reading and scholarship. Taking an in-depth look at Vermeer and the scholarship surrounding his work has brought some startling realizations.

Just as my paper makes a journey from an initial intuitive reading to a more informed one based on scholarly research, so have my discoveries informed my painting which I will list. First, there is the knowledge surrounding the phenomenon of Northern Renaissance painting, which I had never given much thought to—the cultural, geographic, religious and scientific elements that conspired to make this unique genre what it was, as distinct and different from that of Italian Renaissance painting. How it came to be. Having a visual inventory of art historical images (paintings) as I have, is vastly different than knowing their context and the how they relate to one another. Visual inventory is limited. It readily identifies works of art by author, date and region. It might also take paintings on their own terms; how they work compositionally and aesthetically, and with what spirit and energy a painter works. Research has brought a deeper appreciation for the work, which in turn can only better inform my own painting.

Second, by spending more time with the work of a painter I admire and share approaches with (specifically, Vermeer’s naturalistic realism and his bent for perfection) I have somehow managed to see the subtle workings of my own vision. I often choose images to paint by unconscious motives. Stepping back, and hearing a wordsmith such as Edward Snow take apart a Vermeer—investing each gesture of the model or placement of an article with psychological meaning, no slack—gives me the overview to look at my own work more critically, and suggests roads to take. Likewise, I found a lot of the verbalization of ideas confirming of my own perceptions. Currently I am of the mind—look at how much I’ve accomplished unconsciously. Imagine what I might accomplish more consciously.

Third, by way of researching this subject, I have familiarized myself more thoroughly with the job and role art historians play in this world, and how organic, challenging and changing the field is. Knowledge is in some ways political, and who’s agenda gets heard rests largely on who can provide the most convincing argument. Reading the scholarship of Svetlana Alpers, then to going hear her talk, provided a fuller picture of her vision, and put a face on the writing. Somehow, a deeper appreciation of this and the flexibility of knowledge, gives me more elbow room in the studio.

Fourth, I came across a couple of startling assertions and findings in my reading. The scholar Arthur Wheelock, claimed Vermeer “must not have painted very frequently.” He premised this on the small body of work the painter created over a given period of time and the fact that no other industry of prints or drawings exist by the artist that would suggest other motifs, themes, investigations or undertakings. Whether or not this conjecture is true, the thought challenges my conception of the work habits that constitute a productive and substantial artist. Another piece of information that particularly struck me while reading, was that of the method for execution Vermeer and his contemporaries used in painting. They moved from one article to the next, bringing one item up to near total completion before moving to a different area. This was due to the labor intensity of grinding pigments, the day’s supply made for a limited palette. Therefore it was more economical to complete item by item. I have been ingrained with the idea that fundamentally it is desirable to work “all over” a painting for unity, and I have never seen tangible evidence to argue otherwise. Of course, I do whatever works for me, but now I feel less subversive. This will serve in teaching others painting.

Lastly, but most importantly--as I work in the studio now, I am experiencing the benefit of mental space that has been opened through research. Whether it is picking up the Dutch Baroque floral still life to place next to my Mennonite woman, or transporting a French Arabesque floral wallpaper to her modest kitchen walls, I am experiencing a fluidity that previously didn’t exist. If the research is not connected to the work project, I don’t know how else to explain it.

Footnotes

1 An apt term used by Edward Snow in his book, A Study of Vermeer (Berkley: University of California Press, 1994), 57. Snow uses an approach of careful looking and reflecting on various works in Vermeer’s oeuvre, strengthened by his literary knowledge.

2 Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists Around 1650, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1977), 265.

3 Peter C. Sutton, Pieter de Hooch, 1629-168, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 24. Sutton points out that both painters were in Delft and to six mature paintings of de Hooch’s dated 1658. Based on the strong similarities of their work, he suggests a working relationship existed of some sort.

4 Wheelock (as in n. 2), 4.

5 Ibid.

6  In Delft Masters, Vermeer’s Contemporaries, (Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 1996), 202, Micheal Kersten makes this observation of contrast between De Hooch and Vermeer’s figures. He notes the more De Hooch’s explicitly represented his spatial settings, the more remote and less tangible his figures appear.

7 Note that with only two of Vermeer’s paintings dated, the chronology itself has been debated, though is now somewhat agreed upon.

8 It is significant to note the use of this chair. The same lion-head finials noted as sentinels by Snow above (as in n. 1) have been noted by Lawrence Weschler, Vermeer in Bosnia, (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004), 16, as symbolizing the raging war outside the confines of the placid Vermeer canvas. The lion is often used to represent the Seventeen Dutch Provinces in maps of the time. The use of  hardware details as symbols are further commented on by Wheelock (as in n.2), 132, who finds the abstracted image of a double-eagle, the imperial symbol of the Hapsburg dynasty, on a glittering chandelier in Vermeer’s The Art of Painting.  

9 Simon Schama, An Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987).

10 The author takes this from a lecture by Sveltlana Alpers at the New York Studio School, March 8, 2006.

11 Wheelock, (as in n. 2), p. 18. Also noteworthy is David Hockney’s extensive research of the use of optical devices as early as 1500, in Secret Knowledge: rediscovering the lost techniques of the old masters, (New York: Viking Studio, 2001), 58.

12 Sveltlana Alpers’ essay “Picturing Dutch Culture” published in Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered. (Cambridge University Press, 1997), 66, edited by Wayne Franits. The tension Alpers refers to in Ter Borch are his representations of the female in the opulent trappings of satin gowns marble fireplaces, foot servants, and so forth. All add the additional layer of seventeenth-century middle-class social conventions to his narrative. For a full account of the art historical debate, refer to Mariet Westermann’s article “After Iconography and Iconoclasm: Current Research in Netherlandish Art, 1566-1700” published in Art Bulletin 84, no. 2 (2002): 351-67.

13 E. De Jongh’s essay “The Iconological Approach to Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting,” published in The Golden Age of Dutch Painting in Historical Perspective, (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 220, edited by Frans Grijzenhout and Henk van Veen.

14 Wheelock (as in n. 2), 40-41, makes an interesting comparison of the pose from a 1539 Dutch engraving by Hans Sebald Beham, Melancholia. He additionally compares the Vermeer pose to a slothful maid in a painting by the Dutch painter Nicholaes Maes, Idle Servant, 1655.

15 This observation was made by Wheelock in his dissertation, Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists Around 1650, (New York; Garland Publishing, 1977), 261, 262. “These difficulties of interpreting Vermeer are…accentuated because his art is so totally visual…In our response to his paintings we are only distantly aware of their secondary  implications. Consequently, the form of visual expression most conducive to a temporal, verbal explanation is lacking in his art.”

16 Wheelock (as in n. 2), 39.

17 Alison McNeil Kettering’s essay “Ter Borch’s Ladies in Satin” published in Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered, (as in n. 9), 98. Kettering in her scholarly research on the work of Gerard ter Borch says these titles are interpretive rather than descriptive. She follows the provenance of one painting title back to its conversion into prints by an engraver in the eighteenth century.

18 Simon Schama, (as in n. 9), 208.