The Milkmaid

The Milkmaid
Artist: Jan Vermeer
Oil painting on canvas; Size: 45.5x41cm; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The Milkmaid is a typical Vermeer style oil painting. The painting composition is simple. The artist Vermeer depicted a thrifty woman; she was pouring milk from a pot to a bowl in the kitchen corner of a peasant family.
The gentle light from the left window cast on the table. The oil painting composition was showing a harmonious atmosphere. Everything in the kitchen was put there silently.
They were prosaic, but released a sense of reality and esteem. The table cloth, towel, basket, copper pot, pottery pot, bread and articles on the wall, especially the woman’s serious expression showing a warm feeling and peaceful manner. The painting art could purify our soul.
By oil painting skill, Vermeer paid close attention to the beauty that contained in the ordinary things. Particularly he cared about the quality of figures and still life and depicted them with great effort. Vermeer’s oil painting showed his masterly painting skills and realistic painting ability. The woman wears a yellow cloth and a blue apron and the texture was crude. The important matter was the two color were attractive and in harmonious. Apparently the she was preparing breakfast. A corner of the apron was tucked. And the fine space perspective and the vivid detail depiction added reality and sense of texture. We must examine our daily life by a new view sight. Vermeer’s oil painting was created with ordinary but magic strength.
Some art critics analyzed the painting color and found that the basic color of the blue pot was in bright tone. That means when Vermeer depicted the pot, he used the light color to paint the original shape, by changing of color Vermeer adapted dark color and light color to finish the high light. When painting basket and break, Vermeer brushed some transparent red megilp on the dark part of the basket and bread, and then drew the outlines based on the color as high light. The tiny dots in the bread were amazing. Regarding the oil painting skill, it was the peak of Vermeer’s art life. That was his art fruit of many years pain staking labor. Custom was the main art subject of Vermeer’s oil painting. He painted people’s daily life. Normally there were not many figures in one painting composition. Mostly were women that managing household affairs. Vermeer’s paintings were always in gently, sweet and peaceful atmosphere. Though lack of social matters in his arts, they are still touching hearts. Vermeer was not so famous as Rembrandt, but he is still one of the most great artists in Dutch in the 17th century. It was a pity that the artist was not approved when he was alive. He and his oil paintings were forgotten around two centuries. In the 19th century, a French art critic studied Vermeer’s painting art and published books about his paintings. That rediscovered his art value.