The Art of Painting. Pencil, 2016.

During my first semester in college, I took a writing seminar on painting & experience in 15th-17th c. Europe. While this was an essay-based writing class, it ended up being a doorway to my future experiences of studying art.

In that course, I read a book by Svetlana Alpers called The Art of Describing, which delved into the difference between the art of the Italian Renaissance and that of the Netherlands during the same period.

Italian art was known for its narrative qualities: it was used to lay out religious doctrines and featured idealized forms and figures. Artists in the Netherlands, meanwhile, were more focused on depicting the world as they saw it.

Painting and mapmaking were similar in this respect, as both sought to document the world precisely as it was.

Jan Vermeer's The Art of Painting, of which this drawing is a copy, was the epitome of this tradition. A tour de force in visual accuracy, Alpers points out that it is both a portrait and reference to mapmaking in one. As with all of Vermeer’s works, this painting captures a domestic scene at a discrete moment in time.

This painting holds special meaning to me: it's representative of my first days in college, an unlikely foray into studying art history, and my ongoing journey to become a better and more conscientious artist.

Progress pics of this piece can be seen below.