Vermeer's Technique

“Before he laid down a dot of paint, Johannes Vermeer would have weighed, ground, burned, sifted, heated, cooled, kneaded, washed, filtered, dried and oiled his colors. Lead white needed to be kept in a hut filled with horse manure: The fumes caused the lead to corrode, creating flakes of white carbonate that were scraped off by hand. Vermeer knew how to soak old leather gloves to extract gluesize. Or he might have followed the recipe for goat glue in The Craftsman’s Handbook: boiled clippings of goat muzzles, feet, sinews and skin, best made in high winds to disperse the goaty smell.”

From “He Made Masterpieces with Manure” by Jane Jelley for Literary Review, December 2017

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