The work in progress. I imagine it must be part of the inner torture of the artist - when to stop and walk away from a canvas or sculpture? When is it complete? The Swiss painter and sculpture Alberto Giacometti painted over his works again and again - not just because he was short of canvases (as Van Gogh, Modigliani and others were at times), but because he was endlessly dissatisfied with his work. He famously cursed and lamented whilst painting! The creative process was a source of constant pain for him.
I recall reading, a couple of years’ ago, that Vermeer’s ‘Girl Reading A Painting At An Open Window’ was found to have a naked Cupid that had been painted over - presumably Cupid got cancelled for some reason way back when, but is enjoying a new lease of life now. Of course, some of the figures in Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgement’ were deemed obscene and his pupil Daniel de Volterra was tasked with covering up their private parts. It seems fitting that paintings sometimes have a life of their own and carry their own secrets within the canvas.
Yes, I recall Giacometti was exasperated that his sculptures shrunk as he was working and he ended up with tiny statuettes. You are absolutely right about Vermeer. I wrote a book on him last year and discussed that very point. I actually loved the plain version but I can see why the original had to be uncovered. I am just writing about Velazquez and his "Weavers/Myth of Arachne" had massive additions. I grew up with books with that version in and it feels strange to see it reduced now. In the same way, we are used to Greek statues as being plain when they were originally brightly coloured. We tend to prefer things the way we remember them rather than the way they were originally intended!
Yes! I’ve been fortunate enough to see some of Giacometti’s sculptures at MoMA and an exhibition at the Tate in London some years’
ago. It’s impossible not to visualise him chipping away at them, endlessly driven, whilst the pieces just became thinner and thinner. His virulent self-criticism really defined his work.
I agree with you - I prefer the Vermeer without the Cupid. In the newer version, the eye is inevitably drawn away from the subject (the girl at the window) and, instead, to the Cupid on the wall. It changes the whole frame of reference of the painting. You’re so right - we do prefer things as we remember them and not as they really are or were. I still find it a bit jarring to look at colourised film footage of old London or Paris from over a century ago. In my mind, they are captured in monochrome and not colour.
When I wrote my Vermeer book I made sure it included both versions of that painting so that younger people can see and absorb the plainer version, as all new books on Vermeer only have the cupid version.
Very happy to read that. That’s what is so insidious about the revisionism of art and literature - the erasure of the truth of things. It’s why it’s so important to obtain physical copies and not rely solely on virtual images. Eventually there won’t be anyone left that can remember that it was ever anything other than what Google shows us….
The work in progress. I imagine it must be part of the inner torture of the artist - when to stop and walk away from a canvas or sculpture? When is it complete? The Swiss painter and sculpture Alberto Giacometti painted over his works again and again - not just because he was short of canvases (as Van Gogh, Modigliani and others were at times), but because he was endlessly dissatisfied with his work. He famously cursed and lamented whilst painting! The creative process was a source of constant pain for him.
I recall reading, a couple of years’ ago, that Vermeer’s ‘Girl Reading A Painting At An Open Window’ was found to have a naked Cupid that had been painted over - presumably Cupid got cancelled for some reason way back when, but is enjoying a new lease of life now. Of course, some of the figures in Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgement’ were deemed obscene and his pupil Daniel de Volterra was tasked with covering up their private parts. It seems fitting that paintings sometimes have a life of their own and carry their own secrets within the canvas.
Yes, I recall Giacometti was exasperated that his sculptures shrunk as he was working and he ended up with tiny statuettes. You are absolutely right about Vermeer. I wrote a book on him last year and discussed that very point. I actually loved the plain version but I can see why the original had to be uncovered. I am just writing about Velazquez and his "Weavers/Myth of Arachne" had massive additions. I grew up with books with that version in and it feels strange to see it reduced now. In the same way, we are used to Greek statues as being plain when they were originally brightly coloured. We tend to prefer things the way we remember them rather than the way they were originally intended!
Yes! I’ve been fortunate enough to see some of Giacometti’s sculptures at MoMA and an exhibition at the Tate in London some years’
ago. It’s impossible not to visualise him chipping away at them, endlessly driven, whilst the pieces just became thinner and thinner. His virulent self-criticism really defined his work.
I agree with you - I prefer the Vermeer without the Cupid. In the newer version, the eye is inevitably drawn away from the subject (the girl at the window) and, instead, to the Cupid on the wall. It changes the whole frame of reference of the painting. You’re so right - we do prefer things as we remember them and not as they really are or were. I still find it a bit jarring to look at colourised film footage of old London or Paris from over a century ago. In my mind, they are captured in monochrome and not colour.
When I wrote my Vermeer book I made sure it included both versions of that painting so that younger people can see and absorb the plainer version, as all new books on Vermeer only have the cupid version.
Very happy to read that. That’s what is so insidious about the revisionism of art and literature - the erasure of the truth of things. It’s why it’s so important to obtain physical copies and not rely solely on virtual images. Eventually there won’t be anyone left that can remember that it was ever anything other than what Google shows us….
👍 great