Culinary Delights

Going on right now at the Metropolitan Museum is a fantastic little show entitled Vermeer's Masterpiece: The Milkmaid. I highly recommend it. I was actually expecting a very stuffy, high-brow examination of this painting in historical context. Quite the contrary, this show is not only instructive, but intimate, personal, and downright funny. There are also somewhat complicated Feminist issues being alluded to by the discussion, but I'll let someone else travel down that bumpy road.

I had actually missed the retrospective of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) when it was going around the United States in the 1990s. If I remember correctly, I think it bypassed New York and the closest it got was the National Gallery in D.C. But that summer, a friend of mine and I were traveling all around Europe, and got to Amsterdam while the retrospective was in The Hague. We figured we were already close enough, and The Hague seemed an interesting side-trip, a bit off the beaten path. So we went for two days and a night so we could see the Vermeer. He didn't really do all that many paintings, I think it's something like thirty-five altogether, and I think the retrospective included pretty much all of them. It was quite wonderful. So I'd seen all these pieces and studied them somewhat closely before, but as I told another friend when the Met show opened, I don't think you can ever really see too much Dutch Renaissance.

Anyhow, a first section explains how milkmaids and kitchen workers in general had a reputation--or "were assigned" the reputation--for being ~ahem~ amorous. The similarity between a milkmaid milking a cow and...other activities...was not lost on these painters or viewers of the works. These paintings have enough subtly and not-so-subtly sexual imagery to make a 1970s advertising executive start foaming at the mouth.

Click that and look at her back, right above his left hand.

--Credit there in the image.

This is the earliest piece in the show.

Peter Wtewael, Kitchen Scene (1620s, oil on canvas)

Her putting the chicken on the spit is so blatantly obvious it's almost hard to believe this is a painting from the 1600s. It's practically obscene and totally hilarious. But then there's also his hand holding the jug, also quite suggestive of certain other...parts.

It's not all fun and games, however, here's one without as much suggestiveness:

Hendrick Sorgh, A Kitchen (ca. 1643, oil on wood)

Sorgh's piece is more just a reflection on the lives of these women, tending house for a wealthy middle-class family in the Netherlands. Text in the show also mentions how the middle-class grew to such prominence in the Netherlands during this time, and the lower-class house workers became a favored subject amongst painters, no doubt for its brutal realities. The woman at center does look off to the right, though. Evidently an older version of this work included a man entering with fish for sale, likely suggesting some erotic interlude. The posture and position of the woman on the left is remarkably similar to that of Vermeer's milkmaid.

Emanuel de Witte, Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft (1650, oil on wood)

De Witte (1616-1690) is surely one of my ancestors, or at least, descended from one common to me. Since the name is relatively uncommon, I get excited about things like this. Very likely, he and I could both trace our lineage back to the Wittisheim or Witternheim communes in Alsace. I guess it's only fitting then that I adore this piece in so many ways. There's another, almost identical view of the Oude Kerk by Hendrick van Vliet, but I thought it'd be better to support the work of my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great-uncle twice removed instead (that's thirteen "greats"). I wish I could find a more similar view, but here's the Oude Kerk in a lovely photograph by Theo Jacobs:

But click on de Witte's piece. First of all, it's a beautifully precise architectural rendering, which I love, of course. The quality of the light foretells the work of Vermeer and painters like him. And I just had to laugh. The boys at the left are tagging the column with graffiti. It'd be awesome to visit and examine that column very, very carefully to see if there are still remnants of graffiti on that spot. Even better, there's a dog peeing on the column on the right. Again, the realism is astounding, as is the painter's sense of irreverence for his sacred architectural subject.

Back to the sex, we have this one:

Gerrit Dou, The Kitchen Maid (ca. 1650, oil on wood)

This is the original. The piece at the Met is an engraving of it done about a century later. Dou's kitchen maid is incredibly lusty. Her surroundings are just chock full of all these objects that, to a viewer in 1650, would have been completely, blatantly sexual and suggestive of parts of the body where your bathing suit covers. The orifice of the jug she's pouring and the carrots are particularly obvious. I'm going to take a guess that the open lantern is an invitation for the viewer to light her passions aflame. The look on her face is about as come-hither as it gets.

Some of the objects on view in this show made it especially fantastic. They show pottery almost identical in style and age to the ones in Vermeer's painting. Not the one on display at the Met, but very similar is this Westerwald stoneware jug:

Westerwald Stoneware Jug (ca. 1650-1700)

--Photo courtesy H. Paul Garland.

The one in Vermeer's scene and the one on display have a pewter lid and slightly different design, but it's clear these were quite common at the time. The Met also shows a couple of earthenware kitchen vessels remarkably similar to the ones in the painting. In other words, when the exhibition is described as putting the painting into a context, they really mean in every possible way. It's such a delightful work of curatorship by Walter Liedtke from the department of European paintings.

Vermeer was quite a bit more subtle when it comes to l'amour than some of the other, more crass examples in the show, but one little detail was quite interesting. It's a ceramic tile in the lower right hand corner of the painting with the figure of cupid on it. It's very easy to miss if you're not looking closely. To illustrate all the better, the Met had next to the kitchen vessels an example of such a tile:

Delft tile depicting cupid (ca. 1650-1700, tin-glazed pottery)

--Photo courtesy Essential Vermeer.

Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep (ca. 1657, oil on canvas)

Here Vermeer has already started to explore the subject of romance amongst household workers. The door left ajar and the position of the chair on the right indicates the recent departure of a gentleman caller. The maid is dreaming about the guy, of whom she's obviously quite fond. On her face is the remnant of a sort of peaceful smile.

Here it is, the painting touted as his "masterpiece":

Vermeer, The Milkmaid (1658, oil on canvas)

It really is a gorgeous painting. So much of Vermeer's work was masterful, however, I think I'd be hard-pressed to decide on a favorite. Nonetheless, it really is fantastic and the Met describes it as such because it was a transitional piece for Vermeer. The orifice of the milk jug has the same connotations here. The cupid tile is on the wall at bottom right, just next to that wooden box, which is a foot warmer. One might be tempted to wonder if these paintings weren't sort of like pin-ups. The only problem, really, is their intended audience. Presumably the consumer of such a piece would be an upper-middle class man with adulterous fantasies about the woman working in his kitchen. It leads to all kinds of creepy exploitative implications.

This is that guy's wife or potential girlfriend:

Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (ca. 1662, oil on canvas)

Here Vermeer switched from the servant of the house to the mistress of the house. This is an upper-middle class woman who the presumed owner of the painting would have courted. The map indicates worldliness. Here the pitcher isn't shown with its orifice on display, but rather concealed from view. Furthermore the bowl in which it sits is a symbol of purity. The faceted planes of the pitcher are rendered with these beautiful bands of reflected color. Those bands travel up her arm and are mirrored by the pleats in her collar, leading to her head, connecting her mindset directly to those symbols of purity. The headdress is the type of garment that would be worn during the morning toilette, alluding to a relatively intimate aspect of ordinary daily life. Another painting in the exhibition, A Young Woman at Her Toilet with a Maid (ca. 1651) by Gerard Ter Borch, who was a bit older but a contemporary of Vermeer's, describes a similar scene but with the tinge of vanity.

There are quite a few other interesting paintings in the show that really round out this examination. I've decided not to mention them, but they are definitely worth going to see. It's a very impressive little show.

©2009, Ryan Witte

Runway Model

(NYIAS)

One of the more startling things on display this year was from a very young manufacturer, Spyker. It's the C8 Aileron:

Click images to enlarge.

It has a top speed of 187 mph and goes from 0-60 in a little over 4.3 seconds. At around $266,000, it probably should do no worse, and I don't think that's including the cost of shipping from the Netherlands. I guess when I'm able to spend that kind of money on a car, an extra $10,000 in shipping costs won't likely bother me all that much.

The best thing about the Aileron is that I think it's the first car I've seen since probably the 1970s that has a theme to its design. All its details are inspired by the early days of jet airplane flight.

The airscoops look like jet engines, the wheels look like turbines, the rear view mirror arms look like turbine blades. Everything leads in the same stylistic direction. It's really brilliant and the work of Victor Muller, who co-founded the company in 2000.

I think the interior is where this car becomes truly magical:

I want mine in gun-metal gray with a gold interior...or maybe dark navy and beige...oh, who cares, just get me any color you like. But this combination is awesome, something about the top view looks very futuristic to me. Anyway, all the details look exactly like the cockpit of some fancy private jet from 1960.

...or earlier. There's something about the instrument panel and especially their trademark exposed gear-shift that looks totally Steampunk, as if jet-propulsion had become a reality in the early part of the 20th century.

Whether you like its styling or not--I happen to be drooling, personally--there's no question that it's distinctive. There is nothing else like this out there, to my knowledge. In my opinion, if you're going to spend this much money on a vehicle, you deserve more than a badge on the hood that some car lover may or may not recognize. You deserve something that no one else has ever seen or will ever own. It's not that I have any fondness for exclusivity or the snobbery that can so easily accompany it, quite the contrary. But with all the cars out there, even including the concept cars, trying to squeeze every last drop of life out of futuristic hypermodernism, it's refreshing to see a design explore a timeless and obviously handcrafted luxuriousness. I also believe that the sports car purist enjoys connecting with his or her vehicle in a very simplistically mechanical way, to completely feel the car, engine on road. The pure pleasure of driving is what this is about, not transportation to a destination, and the Aileron captures that with the utmost majesty.

©2009, Ryan Witte

Bon Appetite

This is another post that will be sort of like many posts in one, but it all stems from a group called Council from San Francisco (of course: truly some of the most astonishing design work is coming from there lately), but the designers are potentially from anywhere in the world.

First up is Mike & Maaike from San Francisco, who I spoke to and wrote about for the magazine last year.  I'm not going to go into the stuff I saw then, but if you don't know about them, I highly recommend looking through their website, because they really are brilliant.

Anyhow, for Council, they've designed the "Mute" chair and ottoman, which is just peaceful, simple, and lovely:

Next is Nendo, working out of Japan.  For Council he's designed this bookshelf called "Radial":

Sorry about the weird image, they don't have the images from their photo shoot, yet.  But basically it forces its perspective with the vertical panels.  I think it's very smart because it would make itself, and therefore your room, appear far, far bigger and longer than it actually is.

Not for Council, but to be found on his website were a couple of other cool items, these are "Polar" tables for a company called Swedese:

They're basically nesting tables, but the glass is polarized in just such a way that, when it overlaps, it creates these really interesting floral patterns.

Conceptually, it's a great idea, but I'm sure that seen in person, the optical effect of this--where you can't quite tell where the flowers are coming from, would be quite magical.

And this pitcher and tumbler set:

That's not necessarily cold.  It has nubbly blobs of glass on the outside and the glass is smokey toward the bottom.  It would look like that even with a hot liquid in it.  I think that's a fantastic optical illusion.

And lastly, here's Khodi Feiz from the Netherlands.  For Council he's created this "Peel" line, which is fantastic--the ottoman:

But it's hiding something:

Such a simple idea, but I think very clever, streamlined, and flexible.  Here's the chaise:

Not for Council, but for the Dutch Embassy in Berlin, Feiz designed these chairs:

It's carved very geometrically out of one solid block of polystyrene foam.  Its lines are so Space Age and sleek, but I think it looks totally comfortable--it bends under your weight--and evidently perfectly fine for outdoor use; it sounds like it was designed for a park-like space.  Here's the upholstered version, which is interesting in its own unique way:

He also did these portable speakers for Nokia:

He did an especially tiny speaker set--as in you could wear it around your neck like a pendant--but I thought these were awesome.  They can be hooked up wirelessly to any bluetooth device.  They click together with magnets, protecting the speakers:

The heavy duty cable becomes a carrying strap.  Now that's seriously clever.

Council

415-550-1750

©2008, Ryan Witte

Give Them a Hand

Charles & Marie show such an incredible selection of design items, it would be impossible for me to discuss them all.  But their booth was one of a small number at the show that inspired me the most, and Marcus, the guy who spoke to me, was extremely nice, helpful, and seemed excited to be there--with good reason.

One of the things I liked most was just a prototype; they tell me its in production now, but so there are no images of it yet.  When it comes out maybe I'll do a quick update.  But it was brilliant on so many levels.  They're called Fountain champagne glasses.  It's a set of six beautiful champagne glasses, each one about an inch shorter than the last.  All but the last of them has a spout, so you pop open the bottle and pour the champagne into the first, tallest of them.  As each one fills up, the champagne pours over into the shorter one next to it, until they're all full.  The six of them together are perfectly sized to hold one full bottle of champagne.  Amazing.

First of all, I can't even count how many times I've had to sip the foam off the top of an overflowing champagne glass (I guess I get too eager).  But more importantly, it's so wonderfully ceremonial and celebratory, just what you want from a bottle of champagne.  I can't wait for them to come out.

They also had this "Phonofone" mp3 player amplifier:

It's ceramic and the one at the show was in gold.  This black one is limited edition.  But it uses no power.  It amplifies through the same analog means that the old Victrolas did, passively.  The sound still comes from your earbuds, in other words.  They admit it's not going to really blast your music super loud, but still fine for the office or a dinner party, etc.

But I was also really excited about the work of Zelda Beauchampet of the Netherlands, who C&M were representing.

Not at the booth, but to be found on her website, was this very cute, interesting item, "Identity Matters":

The way I understand it, it has several different layers of fabric, with the fabric panels stitched somewhat loosely.  So as you cuddle with your bear over the years, the panels will wear off, one by one, leaving a trace of the love behind:

Best of all, though, was her "Handscape."  I thought this was such an incredible idea, I was probably gushing a little when she came over to talk to me.  It's a landscape for your fingers:

Click that.  There's little buildings, trees, a bird, a bunny, sold individually or in sets of three:


Here's her online shop.

I was raving about this to my coworkers the weekend of the ICFF, and they expressed concerns that something like this would keep getting caught on your clothing and snag your sweaters and whatever.  So I asked Beauchampet about that, and she said only we silly Americans ever ask that question (she put it more nicely than that), and she's never had any problem with it.  Personally, I think it'd be worth it to be careful how you're flailing your hands around to wear something so cool and fun.

Zelda Beauchampet

info@zlda.nl

©2008, Ryan Witte