The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Astronomer claims he can date when Vermeer painted his View of Delft

2020-07-26T05:49:12.486Z


Donald Olson studied the arrangement of light and shadow on the painting, before concluding that it would have been painted on September 3, 1659 at 8 a.m.


One of the mysteries of the " Sphinx of Delft " may have been unraveled. Donald Olson, a professor of astronomy at Texas State University, claims to have identified the exact moment when Johannes Vermeer painted the View of Delft . Given the little information on the life and work of the Dutch master, the circumstances in which this canvas was painted remained unknown until then.

Read also: Vermeer: ​​the myth of the lonely genius

According to the Guardian , Donald Olson - nicknamed the " Heavenly Investigator " - studied at length the arrangement of light and shadow on the painting. The Dutch master is said to have painted View of Delft on September 3, 1659 at 8 a.m. The artist, then 27, was looking out the window from the second floor of the hostel where he was staying.

With the help of Russel Doescher, a former professor of physics, Donald Olson came to this conclusion after having mapped the places during a visit to Delft, and established the angle of the sun which would have allowed the appearance of the fine ray of light visible on the central clock tower of Nieuwe Kerk, in the center of the painting.

Everything is played on the ray of light visible on the central clock tower of Nieuwe Kerk: it indicates where the sun is located

Donald olson

There is the key to the mystery. " Everything is played on this detail: it indicates where the sun must be located for the ray of light to be visible ," says Olson. The arrangement of light and shadow is a reliable indicator of the positioning of the sun ”.

According to the " celestial investigator ", once this is done, the pieces of the puzzle come together on their own. The painter is looking north, which means that the light is coming from the southeast. The scene therefore takes place in the morning. The clock on the facade of one of the buildings shows 7 o'clock. Back then, clocks did not have a minute hand, yet the only visible hand seems closer to 8 o'clock.

Read also: A Dutch researcher locates La Ruelle de Vermeer

Using software, the researchers then calculated the dates when the position of the sun in the sky at 8 a.m. could have created the visible shadows on the clock. Only two moments stand out: April 6-8 and September 3-4. But the foliage of the trees portrayed by Vermeer would not have been so thick in April. The two days of September therefore remain by elimination.

Mixed reception

The findings of the astronomers, published in the specialist magazine Sky & Telescope , received a mixed reception. Lea van der Vinde, from the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague - where the canvas has been exhibited since 1822 alongside Vermeer's most famous work, The Girl with a Pearl Earring - considers the work of astronomers to be " interesting and entertaining ".

Art historian Kees Kaldenbach is more skeptical. According to him, the canvas was painted in May, with the portrayed herring boats preparing for the fishing campaign scheduled for June. I take issue with it. The facts are the facts, ”he laconically told the Dutch daily De Volskrant . A sign that the peaceful landscape depicted by Vermeer never ceases to stir up a stir.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-07-26

You may like

Life/Entertain 2024-02-27T05:15:30.051Z
News/Politics 2024-03-17T05:46:21.610Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.