维米尔作品音乐课的透视法分析.pdfVIP

Some Perspective Considerations On Vermeer’s The Music Lesson (reviewed version, Sep. 24, 2009) Tomás García-Salgado National Autonomous University of México tgsalgado@ Abstract The scene of The Music Lesson looks quite natural, unlikely constructed by any perspective method available at the time. The mirror suggests that it was placed on purpose to reflect the apprentice’s face, moreover, the vertical alignment of the mirror, the apprentice, the viol, the chair, and the table’s rug falling into the floor, seems to be arranged with the intention of creating a virtual plane of composition. Looking carefully at the furniture of the room, one wonders if the teacher can freely walk toward us without skipping the viol. However, the paramount question of the Music Lesson is whether it was produced by a perspective method or by the aid of a camera obscura; a question that is at the core of the controversy between Philip Steadman and Allan Mills. Here, we will discuss the main arguments of this controversy while introducing some other new arguments related to the scene’s perspective that might help to understand how it was constructed. 1 Steadman-Mills Controversy Philip Steadman, based on his reconstruction experiment [1], sustains that Vermeer traced The Music Lesson in full-size using a cubicle-type camera obscura: “He used this arrangement to project the scene onto the back wall, which thus served as the camera’s screen. ” [2] On the other hand Allan A. Mills suggests that Vermeer constructed the composition according to the perspective methods taught by Vredeman and Hondius [3]. Also Mills says: “… that he had seen —and was stimula