Moving downstairs at the Met, from the Robert Frank exhibition to Vermeer one floor below it, was less jarring than one might expect. Frank’s introspective black and white images gave way to luminous 17th century color oil portraits that looked nearly photographic, bathed in translucent beams of Flemish light. Having spent long hours wandering through the dimly lit Dutch painting section at the Louvre, I arrived with enthused anticipation.

Vermeer’s signature work, The Milkmaid, on loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, is flanked by a grid of reproductions of his known 36 works, Vermeers from the Met’s permanent collection, and is introduced by portraits from Pieter de Hooch and influential painters of the time. Taupe walls and ornate wooden frames pull the viewer back four centuries to the days when life was supposedly simpler and serene.

The fact that Vermeer is known as a “pre-photographic” painter and is thought to have used the camera obscura, precursor to the modern camera, as a drawing device, gives his work a realistic point of view that belies the fact photography did not exist. Although Vermeer’s work looks romantic compared to Frank’s dark realism, its painterly precision is startlingly contemporary, as if he had painted from snapshots.

Like Di Vinci’s Mona Lisa, The Milkmaid is a gorgeous crowd-pleasing blockbuster, depicting an idealized view of womanhood that while rendered mystical by the light, is undeniably sensual. According to the show’s description, kitchen maids of the time were known for their ‘amorous qualities’ making them fair game to men’s advances. The innocence of the subject is therefore thought to be an illusion, creating a subtle controversy within the frame.

Viewed close up, the painting is more complicated than it seems. A rounded-looking maid pouring milk from a pitcher in a closed interior, leaning gently forward while averting the viewer’s gaze, has a definite sexual subtext that paves the way for Dorothea Tanning and John Currin. Yet the work’s obvious sexuality is contradicted by the light, which miraculously seems to absolve it of any ulterior motives. It’s the contrast between these opposing forces and their peaceful co-existence that makes the milkmaid worth revisiting.

I found it interesting to read that Vermeer did not consider his paintings ‘portraits,’ but was more interested in the relationship of objects, light and shadow, shapes and form. As I scrutinized the canvas from a few inches away, the brushstrokes on the maid were softer, but the objects in the background were dizzyingly sharp and real. A wicker basket and reflective metal object hanging on the wall and the window frame itself looked so solid and tactile, that I felt as if I were gazing into a mirror. Delft objects similar to those in the painting displayed nearby reinforced the eerie sense of having glanced through a window into the past.

Building an entire exhibition around this single painting continues a rich and thorny dialogue on depictions of women through the history of art-making that is barely touched upon in the museum brochure. I left feeling that nothing has really changed if we are still debating whetherThe Milkmaid is a virgin or a whore.

--Kirsten Bengtson-Lykoudis

Images: Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, about 1657–58, Oil on canvas, Collection Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Purchase, 1908, with aid from the Rembrandt Society; Pieter de Hooch (Dutch, 1629–1684), The Visit, about 1657, Oil on wood, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.7); Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, DETAIL. Courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art.