Effects of Distance: The Paintings of Vermeer

Speaker: Ranjit Hoskote

September 23, 1994 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, art critic and translator. He is the author of several books, his writings on art appear in various journals and periodicals.

Known for his paintings of intimate, enigmatic interiors, Jan Vermeer of Delft (1632-1675) remains a shadowy figure. The light streaming through the high windows in Vermeer’s paintings, reveals a world coming to birth from the interplay of scientific discovery and international trade.
By a subtle symbolism, a play of the real and the imaginary, Vermeer succeeded in creating mysterious evocations of this new world, its images speak to us through his figures, the milkmaid, the astronomer, the geographer, the music teacher. Each, in his or her own way, creates a new space of communication: an expressive rhetoric of gestures and silence rather than speech. It is this space that the slide lecture will explore.