A Study of Vermeer, Revised and Enlarged edition

by Edward Snow

Edward Snow's A Study of Vermeer , first published in 1979 and here presented in an expanded and elaborately revised version, starts from a single that we respond so intensely to Vermeer because his paintings reach so deeply into our lives. Our desire for images, the distances that separate us, the validations we seek from the still world, the traces of ghostliness in our own human presence—these, the book proposes, are Vermeer's themes, which he pursues with a realism always in touch with the uncanny. As Snow traces the many counterpoised sensations that make up Vermeer's equanimity, he leads us into a world of nuances and surprise.

A Study of Vermeer is passionate and visual in its commitments. Snow works from the conviction that viewing pictures is a reciprocal act—symbiotic, consequential, real. His discussions of Vermeer's paintings are conducted in a language of patient observation, and they involve the reader in an experience of deepening relation and ongoing visual discovery. The book has been designed to facilitate this over eighty illustrations, fifty-nine in color (including two full-page foldouts), accompany the text so that the details Snow illuminates will be continally in view. Here is a book to enthrall not only students of Vermeer, but anyone who feels the exhilaration of what Cézanne called "thinking in images."

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 14, 1994

Reviews

[reveurdart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetic prose and thoughtful interpretations of a handful of Vermeer's paintings. The author's passion for Vermeer's paintings shines through.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snow's book comprises three essays. The first examines the singularity of Head of a Young Girl within Vermeer's oeuvre; the second (tripartite) essay charts Vermeer's varying handling of sexuality in his paintings; the third is a call for reassessment of the 'standard' allegorical and moralistic readings of Vermeer's works. This work reads more as a dithyramb to the artistic process than as a standard academic work - accordingly, the prose is occasionally oblique, and can meander unhelpfully. However, Snow offers some insights of outstanding subtlety that ought to inspire anyone who takes time to look at art.