The Guitar Player

The Guitar Player is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), dated . This work of art is one of Vermeer's final artistic activities, providing insight into the techniques he mastered and approaches to painting he favored. The painting has been on display at Kenwood House, London since the 1920s, as part of the Iveagh Bequest collection. After being recovered from a theft in 1974, when the painting was held for ransom, The Guitar Player was returned to Kenwood House. Background Vermeer's artistic style in the 1670s is often compared to his earlier style of the mid-1660s. The Guitar Player properly demonstrates the energy of Vermeer's late style. His earlier paintings portray quiet self-contained worlds, but The Guitar Player is different. His late style demonstrated abstract painting techniques, in which the depiction of motion is portrayed through the diffused illustration of shifting objects. With Vermeer's experience, he began to create paintings that demonstrate dynamic poses and actions, implying that a movement (or in this case, sound) is taking place. The Guitar Player is often compared to Vermeer's, Woman with a Lute. Composition and style The Guitar Player represents a new direction in Vermeer's art. Because he developed and perfected compositional balance and harmony during the 1660s, he was able to expand and paint scenes that show imbalance and fluctuation. Vermeer's painting of The Guitar Player rejects compositional balance and harmony, which contradicts his previous paintings. This painting exhibits an unbalanced arrangement that depicts a lack of compositional consistency, but also rejects the past instrument of the lute to focus on the modern guitar. The rejection of the lute and depiction of the guitar may be linked to Vermeer's compositional organization. Vermeer painted the young guitar player far to the left, covering the right half of the painting in light and shadow. This imbalance gives the viewer a sense of change and movement. The combination of an uneven arrangement conjoined with a gleam of light coming from the right rather than the left, forces the viewer engage with the character and instrument in this painting. The compositional arrangement is reinforced by Vermeer's decision to specifically direct the light onto the guitar player, which helps the viewer feel the impact of her presence.