The Beirut Art Film Festival – BAFF and Jeunesse et Arts Plastiques – JAP, in partnership with the Embassy of Belgium in Lebanon, are organizing an online conference by Belgian art historian, teacher and speaker Vincent Cartuyvels titled Vermeer or Some Paintings at the Heart of Western Art. The conference is included in the framework of BAFF’s online events and will take place on Monday, May 29 at 8 pm, Beirut time.
The largest unprecedented exhibition ever dedicated to the paintings of Johannes Vermeer is currently taking place at the famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam until June 4, 2023. On this occasion, the BAFF is organizing an online conference with the aim of developing a reflection on the art of painting.
Vermeer in the News
Vermeer, a 12th-century painter renowned for his mastery for the use of light, particularly famous for the Milkmaid painting, is back under the spotlight in 2023. The Amsterdam exhibition currently brings together works from all over the world highlighting the artist’s career. Recently, the iconic Girl with a Pearl Earring painting aroused controversy around Artificial Intelligence. This work, one of the most famous paintings in history, was reproduced with artificial intelligence and installed at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, gathering reproductions of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665), which will also be part of the Rijksmuseum exhibition in Amsterdam. At first glance, one would find the characteristic luminosity of the original painting of Vermeer, as well as the enigmatic look of the young girl. Nevertheless, after closer inspection, strange details would jump out. This young girl does not have just one earring, but two sparkling ones, one in each ear, in addition to freckles of an almost inhuman shade of red over her face. This controversy has brought out Vermeer’s genius aspect, putting the painter back under the spotlight.
The Conference: Vermeer under the spotlight
The BAFF, always in search of special topics, is organizing a cultural event in line with the international scene. The conference led by the art historian, teacher and speaker Vincent Cartuyvels will be open to art and painting enthusiasts. The online format is part of a wide cultural perspective for all. In a reflection on the act of painting, Vermeer embeds forms on the image plane and in the network of perspective in a counterpoint of parallel and opposite motifs. Light is the main actor: treated by colors in their greatest intensity, it circulates through filters and reflections with a harmonic complexity that finds echo in Bach’s music and Spinoza’s philosophy. By condensing the themes of Dutch paintings, an intimate scene excludes spectators through carefully arranged obstacles. A photographic issue is revealed: the relationship between the voyeur and the subject. An intuition undoubtedly linked to the camera obscura.
Online registration to attend the conference:
https://beirutartfilmfestival.org/
Marie-Christine Tayah
Instagram : @mariechristine.tayah
