Behind the Art: Why is The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer famous?

The subject of the painting is rather simple to comprehend. Vermeer has shown a milkmaid, a woman who milks cows and then makes dairy products like cheese. She is seen standing in a plain-looking room, carefully pouring milk into a squat earthenware container. She appears to be a young yet sturdy woman wearing a crisp linen cap and a blue apron. Having been acquainted with Vermeer’s other works such as the ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’, I know that he is the master of illusion and loves to play with the lighting to make things appear a certain way to the viewer. What I did not expect was to get fooled by it again.

Just like how he has fooled millions of people for centuries about ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ wearing a pearl earring when in fact her ear lobe is not even pierced, in this painting, the details of the woman and the table are also misleading. The bright light does not wash out the rough texture of the bread crusts or flatten the volumes of the maid’s thick waist and rounded shoulders. Several art critics have claimed that with half of the woman’s face in shadow, it is “impossible to tell whether her downcast eyes and pursed lips express wistfulness or concentration.”

Art historians also think this has the “Mona Lisa effect” on people which forces them to think more about the lady in the painting. I did stare at her faint smile and thought to myself “What is she thinking?” and “Why did Vermeer paint her?”. I, however, did have to remind myself that the master of illusion could very well have made me think she is smiling when in reality she could be serious and busy with her task.

Why did Vermeer paint a milkmaid?

Curiosity got the better of me and I started researching on why Vermeer would choose to paint a random milkmaid who is too occupied with her tasks at hand. Milkmaids or kitchen maids did not particularly have a good reputation in Dutch society for at least two centuries before the painting was created. They had a reputation of being predisposed to sex or love, which could be seen in many Dutch paintings. By the time Vermeer stepped into the game, the rules and perception had changed towards milkmaids. Women doing household chores showcased the Dutch domestic virtue and his painting is one of the rare examples of a maid treated in a dignified manner. Vermeer chose to paint a maid because it was his way of paying tribute to the virtues of temperance, purity and hard work.

What makes this painting so well-liked like the Mona Lisa?

Thanks to the already attached sexual connotation to maids, this painting highlights the small smile that the milkmaid wears on her face whilst working. It could be a suggestive smile or just a shy one, and the need to decode what the smile means will arise in the viewer’s mind. The relevance of the painting lies in the social context of the sexual interactions of maids and men of higher social ranks – something which has disappeared in Europe in the present day.

Another reason why this painting is so well known is due to its mystery– just like how we don’t know where Mona Lisa is looking, it is unclear what the milkmaid is making in the kitchen. Art historians have long loved to talk about the food item being prepared; while some say she is making bread pudding, others say she is making custard. It was the ‘modest’ way in which Vermeer portrayed the maid which won millions of hearts. What this painting has that Mona Lisa does not is a photograph-like realism, which I thought was brilliant.

Vermeer was only 25 years old when he painted this, and it does look like a photograph taken using a smartphone user who is the same age as him. I was very fascinated that the discrepancy between objects at various distances from the viewer may indicate Vermeer using a camera obscura.

However, the idea that he traced compositions in an optical device is rather naive when you consider that the light lasts maybe 10 seconds, but the painting took at least months to paint. Art critics claim that the pin in the canvas would have been tied to a string with chalk on it, which the painter would have snapped to get perspective lines before painting on it.

I could write a book on this one painting and tell the world how brilliant Vermeer’s art techniques were, but that would not be enough. Anyone interested in art would notice that this painting has a brilliant colour scheme. Artists since the 18th century have complimented Vermeet’s choice of palette and compared it with his contemporaries. His preference for the expensive natural ultramarine (made from crushed lapis lazuli) is different from other painters who typically used the much cheaper azurite. Along with the ultramarine, lead-tin-yellow is also a dominant colour in an exceptionally luminous work. Depicting white walls was a challenge for artists in Vermeer’s time, with his contemporaries using various forms of grey pigment. Here the white walls reflect the daylight with different intensities, displaying the effects of uneven textures on the plastered surfaces. The artist here used white lead, umber and charcoal black.

Probably worth millions today, this painting represents the Dutch society through the brushstrokes of the illusionist Johannes Vermeer, and is something that will forever stay relevant in the art world due to the subject matter painted and the setting.

Next up in Behind the Art: Why is The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí one of the most recognised artworks in history?

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