Vermeer's painting "The Milkmaid" depicts a young woman milking cows in a modest kitchen setting. Painted in 1658, it uses meticulous detail and contrasting light to create an illusion of both monumentality and calm. The artist Johannes Vermeer lived in Delft and struggled financially as he spent significant time and effort on each painting, which were mostly domestic interior scenes. He is renowned for his mastery of light and use of geometry in works like "The Milkmaid" and "Girl with a Pearl Earring".
2. What’s ‘The Milkmaid’?
• The milkmaid is an oil-on-canvas picture that was painted by
the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. In the painting we can
see a milkmaid dressed in puritanical form (a women who
milked cows in that epoch) situated in a modest kitchen with a
table in which there are many types of bread and a container.
In the wall there is a basket of wicker. In the foot warmer were
painted tiles of Cupid. Now, the painting is in the
Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.
3. Characteristics
• In this painting we must understand two different and
contradictories concepts that Vermeer has shown; a sensation
of monumentality and a big calm.
• It was painted in 1858 and it’s very ilusionistic. It has been
painted really meticulously and it shows a big contrast
between the light of the floor and the light of the wall.
4. What about the painter?
• Johannes Vermeer was born in Netherlands in 1632 and he
lived in the city of Delft. He lived exclusively of the painting
and he had economic difficulties because he didn’t painted a
lof of paintings and he spent a lot of time for to paint a
picture. At the age of twenty he married Catharina Bolenes
(he was protestant and his wife was catholic) and they had
fifteen children. During his life he didn’t have too much
success and he painted realistic pictures and scenes of the
cotidian life, in special paintings of women.
• He died in 15 December of 1675.
7. Why is he important?
• He’s principally know by the treatment of the light,
he never used the grey colour for the shades. He
used a dark chamber to paint his pictures.
• Lots of his paintings had been painted with grey,
yellow and blue which were his favourite mix.
Geometry was very important in his work, he painted
mostly domestic interior scenes. He is one of the
best painters of the Dutch Golden Age.
8. My opinion
• Although I haven’t seen any picture of him, I think
that it’s a great painter, and his work it’s more
interesting than other more famous painters of that
age. In my opinion we should see some of his
paintings like the girl with a pearl earring and the
milkmaid.
• This picture is really beautiful because it shows
something very simple (a milkmaid in a kitchen) but
it results striking!
