Details of Vermeer's Painting Technique

Green Earth

The Guitar Player
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1670–1673
Oil on canvas, 53 x 46.3 cm.
Iveagh Bequest, London

Although some critics do not look favorably on Vermeer's late works, they contain indeed an array of stylistic and technical surprises. One of the most curious was the use of green earth in the shadows of the flesh tones of the female figures. The neck of the smiling young musician in Vermeer's The Guitar Player is a fine example. Green earth is readily visible in the right-hand side of the girl's neck and upper chest. Moreover, the deep shadows of the face, very likely first laid in with pinks and mute browns, have been painted over lightly with various shades of green earth paint resulting in a silvery sheen that lightens the broad mass shadow of the head. This distinctive technique remains unexplained, eliciting curiosity and admiration for its innovative departure from conventional practices of the time.

No one has been able to explain how Vermeer came upon this curious technique.

The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Aurea (detail)
Duccio
c. 1312–15 (?)
Egg tempera on wood, 61.4 x 39.3 cm.
National Gallery, London

Green earth,^{Green earth is a naturally occurring pigment, also known by its mineral names celadonite and glauconite, which has been used since antiquity.} a dull green pigment made of natural earth excavated in Italy and Cyprus—the best variety is said to come from Verona—was extensively used by Italian masters in the fourteenth and early fifteenth century to create a uniform base for painting flesh. Its purpose was to neutralize the white ground which was necessary to prepare wood panels for painting making flesh tones applied upon it appear vividly warm. Upon drying, artists would then apply the pink flesh tones gently over the dull green base, which originally gave the flesh a cool, pearlescent glow. Over time, many of the delicate pink flesh tones of the period have since faded resulting in the exposure of the underlying green earth ground once more.

This technique, which fell out of favor with the advent of oil painting, was rarely employed in the centuries that followed.

However, in a few paintings of the Utrecht School, green earth was detected in the darker tones of the flesh. Some of the painters who belonged to this school had been to Italy to study painting where they may have come familiar with the technique, and adapting it to their own expressive necessities.

The use of this anachronistic technique would at least indirectly support a recent theory that Vermeer served his apprenticeship in Utrecht and not in Delft as it has been established that Vermeer never traveled to Italy. It remains inexplicable exactly why he would have used green earth uniquely in his later works and where he might have learned about its use for flesh tints.