Painting on the edge: Overview and contents
This short series of articles has looked at an oddity in visual art, where artists have intentionally introduced optical effects into their paintings by blurring edges and other passages.
Human vision does see blurring in some circumstances, even when the eyes have no need of optical correction, but there has been an enduring expectation for painted representations to remain sharp throughout. Accordingly, until the middle of the nineteenth century paintings were normally supposed to have sharp edges and fine detail.
That doesn’t mean that painters never viewed their subjects in any other way. Indeed, in the late eighteenth century landscape artists in particular were often advised to squint or partially close their eyes when looking at a landscape, and some adopted a device known as a Claude glass to ‘enhance’ their perception of landscapes. Named after the great landscape painter Claude Lorrain, it consists of a shallow convex mirror, tinted to make it dark and prevent details from being seen in the reflection. For a few decades they were a fad, particularly among amateur painters from the upper class, but they made no impression on the development of landscape painting.
Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), The Giant Mountains (1830–35), oil on canvas, 72 × 102 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Wikimedia Commons.
Even when viewing objects over a range of distances and in mist, humans don’t normally perceive blurred edges, as demonstrated in Caspar David Friedrich’s Giant Mountains from 1830–35. This is due to the combination of automatic focussing in the eyes and the construction of composite visual images in the brain, which don’t show the same effects seen in photographs. Blurred edges in paintings are thus an artist’s choice.
The first and most notable exception to this is a series of indoor figurative paintings made by Jan Vermeer between about 1660 and 1668. These range from portraits such as The Girl with a Pearl Earring, through genre scenes like The Milkmaid, to what is almost certainly allegory in The Art of Painting. They are each remarkable for their use of optical effects, in that they appear to be the first and only paintings made before the late nineteenth century with intentionally blurred edges and highlights.
Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), Mistress and Maid (1664-67), oil on canvas, 90.2 x 78.7 cm, The Frick Collection, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.
Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid from about 1664-67 has many soft edges, particularly those of the maid in the left distance, whose head and forearms are blurry. The crispest edges are those of the mistress’s forearms, particularly the left where it crosses her clothing.
One of the few everyday situations in which humans perceived blurring before seeing photographs was in objects in motion, and that was most easily observed in rapidly rotating spokes, as in spinning wheels.
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), The Spinners (Las Hilanderas, The Fable of Arachne) (c 1657), oil on canvas, 220 x 289 cm, Prado Museum, Madrid. Wikimedia Commons.
Whatever reading you like to make of Velázquez’s Las Hilanderas or The Spinners, one of its striking features is the motion blur of the spinning wheel in the foreground.
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), The Spinners (Las Hilanderas, The Fable of Arachne) (detail) (c 1657), oil on canvas, 220 x 289 cm, original 167 cm × 252 cm, Museo Nacional Del Prado, Madrid. Wikimedia Commons.
A closer look reveals the detail in Velázquez’s painting, which was clearly the result of close observation of the blurred image the artist perceived. There are hints of radial spokes, and concentric circles suggesting the structure of the hub and its rim in rapid motion. Other parts that would have been in motion, such as the wheel’s support, are also carefully blurred, as is the yarn.
From the middle of the nineteenth century the advent of photography altered human perception. Although lenses and optical instruments had been used well before Vermeer’s day, the ability to capture the effects of lens focus and depth of field in still images influenced paintings from the late nineteenth century.
Paul Louis Martin des Amoignes (1858–1925), In the Classroom (1886), oil on canvas, 68.5 × 110.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Paul Louis Martin des Amoignes’ wonderful In the Classroom was painted in 1886. It bears unmistakeable evidence that it was either painted from photographs or strongly influenced by them. One boy, staring intently at the teacher in front of the class, is caught crisply, pencil poised in his hand. Beyond him the crowd of heads becomes more blurred.
Vermeer’s paintings had been largely forgotten until they were rediscovered as photography was being developed. An American artist, William McGregor Paxton, studied his works and reinvented his optical techniques in what he termed binocular vision.
William McGregor Paxton (1869–1941), Tea Leaves (1909), oil on canvas, 91.6 x 71.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.
Painted in 1909, Paxton’s Tea Leaves is a good example of his approach.
William McGregor Paxton (1869–1941), Tea Leaves (detail) (1909), oil on canvas, 91.6 x 71.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.
Notice the zone of relative sharpness extending from the right shoulder of the woman at the left, across the silver teapot to the hands of the woman in the hat. This contrasts markedly with the much softer blue edge of the screen above them, for instance.
Paxton not only had the advantage of being able to study Vermeer’s paintings as he travelled in Europe, and an understanding of modern optics, but experienced the widespread use of cameras with lenses that had limited depth of field.
At about the same time, artists like Anders Zorn started to blur edges for compositional advantage, to build an edge hierarchy.
Anders Zorn (1860–1920), Self-portrait (c 1889), oil on canvas, 74.5 x 62.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Zorn’s Self-portrait from about 1889 shows an optically impossible range of edges. Crispest is his jacket lapel below his face, where the near-white of the jacket contrasts most strongly against black. His other lapel, which is only slightly deeper into the field, is so blurred that it’s hard to say where it begins or ends. His left sleeve is also blurred, while the bust at the left is sharp. Those effects don’t correlate with any optical phenomenon, so are compositional choices made by the artist.
Blurring edges in paintings requires careful choice of media and technique, as it needs the artist to be able to apply fresh wet paint to wet paint they have previously applied. Because oil paints ‘dry’ slowly, and their viscosity and rate of drying can be controlled, they are most suitable for creating blurred edges. Other media such as egg tempera are unsuitable because of their rapid drying time. Until recently, this has been a problem for those using acrylics, but newer formulations of acrylic paints now remain ‘open’ for longer before they dry.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1620), oil, dimensions not known, Národní galerie v Praze, Prague, Czech Republic. Wikimedia Commons.
Much of the oil paint applied by Rubens in studies like this for his Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1620) seems to have been applied when in quite liquid form, and some has been brushed wet-in-wet. Highlights, such as those on flesh, and white fabrics, have been added last, using more viscous paint wet-on-dry.
Thus blurred edges require technique as well as the artist’s intent.
In this series, I have demonstrated three good reasons for blurred edges in a painting:
motion blur, following close observation;
depth of field, either as a compositional device or from photographs;
edge hierarchy, as a compositional device.
Although these remain unusual, I hope you have found them as fascinating as I have.
