Images Re-Vues (Sep 2006)
Daniel Arasse et la peinture hollandaise du xviie siècle
Abstract
Whereas the socio-economic studies of Montias allowed the deconstruction of the Vermeer myth, Daniel Arasse’s research devoted to the Golden Age has made him go off in a different direction. Noting the fascination he felt for these paintings he sought to understand them quite as much as explain them. Through confronting the various methods used to study the “Sphinx of Delft’s” paintings Arasse has shown they did not cancel one another out but reinforced themselves mutually, so as to create an image of enhanced polysemy. Seeking to reconstitute Vermeer’s “ambition”, however, Arasse presents as axiomatic the unity of the artist’s work – a premise which, though not very convincing, lends weight to the romantic legend of the genius withdrawn in his splendid isolation – which paradoxically makes him the heir of Thoré Bürger and Fromentin rather than of 20th century historiography.
