God for an Old Man by Dicken Thomas M.;

Author:Dicken, Thomas M.; [Dicken, Thomas M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781498238953
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2016-01-04T08:00:00+00:00

36. Updike, Just Looking, 9.

37. Updike, Seek My Face, 38.

38. Ibid., 25.

39. Ibid., 24.

40. Ibid., 50.

41. Ibid., 97–98.

42. Ibid., 233.

43. Ibid.. 118.

44. Ibid.. 214.

45. Ibid.. 185.

46. Ibid.. 233.

47. Ibid., 266.

12 ART

VERMEER, DA VINCI, CARAVAGGIO, AND ROTHKO

In 1986, my wife Nancy and I took a vacation trip to England. In London, we wandered into the National Gallery, next to the Green. At the admissions desk, I picked up a sheet of paper claiming to list and give directions to the twenty greatest works of art in the Gallery’s collection. Like other tourists, we decided that would be the most “efficient” way to make sure we didn’t miss anything, so we found our way to each of the superstars. It was during that afternoon that I realized that I didn’t know anything about what I was doing. I had no idea why those twenty paintings were superior to the thousands of other works of art in the collection. Maybe they weren’t. Since that day, art has been a central interest and focus of my life. It has also been a good excuse to travel through the United States, Europe, and Japan. I haven’t golfed since I retired. In this section I want to discuss the work of four artists who have been important to me: Johannes Vermeer, Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo Caravaggio, and Mark Rothko.

In the paintings of Johannes Vermeer, there is a precision at work that also nonetheless suggests something ultimate. We know that precision was important to Vermeer. Evidence suggests, for instance, that he was one of the first to experiment with a “camera obscura” to assure that his proportions and perspective were correct. This is not to say that he sought photographic accuracy. He composed; he made decisions; he obscured at times; he created a mood. Yet his paintings are precise in ways that paintings of many other artists are not.

Many of Vermeer’s paintings belong to a class known as genre paintings. This was far from the highest-ranking category. Unlike paintings from mythology or religious scenes or events of state and history, genre paintings were of domestic interior scenes: ordinary life in private homes. Yet in the hundred or so years since the work of Vermeer has moved back to center stage, it is clear that something more than domesticity is going on. Something is at work in his paintings, some mood of mystery.

My suggestion is that they are paintings of human interiority. Here the scene is one of quiet domesticity. A wall or a window is the only horizon we have. Everything is human-size. Nothing is overwhelming. There is no explicit religious iconography. Yet a presence is felt that, for some of us, hints at the ultimate. Many of his paintings illustrate this. I will focus on “Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid.” This is a painting of a woman writing a letter and of her servant staring out the window. But it’s more than that.

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