Art Summary: Woman Holding A Balance By Johannes Vermeer

1600 Words7 Pages

Early modern history proves to change the lives of many humans. The world today would not be the same place as people know it to be if not for the advances the people made in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. I can identify many of these changes in history, involving religion, discovery, exploration, and science, through one painting alone. That painting is called Woman Holding a Balance by Johannes Vermeer. This essay will outline the connections I can make to these changes in history and this painting through observations and what I have learned through reading and discussions. Woman Holding a Balance, the painting of focus, tells the end of a story that Vermeer revealed through multiple paintings. The first part of the story starts from View of Delft, which sets the scene for the story to come. The second part of the story, Officer and Laughing Girl, depict a military officer with a girl. The officer, after returning home from the Eighty Years’ War, appears to be courting the young woman. The third portion of the story is told from Young Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window. Continuing with the story line, the letter must be from the military officer who traded in his title to become wealthy in the trade industry. The man is off in the world with the VOC, a trade company called the Dutch East India Company, and writes the girl a letter. Ending with Woman Holding a Balance, the painting shows the outcomes of successful trade. The woman has pearls

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