The Art of Contemplation

Rare paintings by Vermeer form the cornerstone of a new body of work by Joe Fig on view at the Sarasota Art Museum.

By John O’Hern

Joe Fig has produced a broad range of paintings, sculpture, photography and drawings that explore the creative process—his own and that of others. There are three-dimensional models of artists’ studios, photographs of them and paintings of people experiencing art in galleries and museums.

With bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, he is department chair of both fine arts and visual studies at Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida. The college’s Sarasota Art Museum is showing the exhibition Joe Fig: Contemplating Vermeer through April 13, 2025.

Vermeer: Girl with a Pearl Earring / Mauritshuis, 2023, oil on linen mounted on MDF board, 13 x 15¾". Courtesy of the artist.

In 2020 he staged the exhibition Contemplation at Cristin Tierney Gallery in New York, followed by Contemplating Compositions in 2023.

At that time, the gallery explained, “When we contemplate an artwork, we often distill a piece down to its elements, analyze what we see and form opinions. We uncover what is being communicated. Similarly, when making work, artists frequently pause to take a step back, look and reflect. Contemplation is as intrinsic to the creative process as the actual physical work of making an object. As Fig says, ‘It’s in this moment of seeming inactivity when the artist is working the hardest.’”

Vermeer: Girl with a Pearl Earring / Mauritshuis (detail), 2023, oil on linen mounted on MDF board, 13 x 15¾ in. Courtesy of the artist.

Those moments were summed up by the historian and critic Lewis Mumford, who wrote, “A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection, is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.”

Fig contemplated not only the largest exhibition of Vermeer’s rare paintings at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 2023, but the other visitors who were contemplating the paintings.

Vermeer: Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window / Rijksmuseum, 2023, oil on linen mounted on MDF Board, 12½ x 11¼". Courtesy of the artist.

Vermeer: A Lady Writing / Rijksmuseum, 2023, oil on linen mounted on MDF board, 14 x 12½". Courtesy of the artist.

He has said that painting the works of other artists within his own paintings is “kind of getting into the head of that artist.” I asked him what he learned about Vermeer from the exhibition, reproducing the paintings in his new series and contemplating the people contemplating.

“I’ve been very fortunate to have grown up in the New York City area and to have lived in New York for 20 years,” he replies. “There are eight Vermeers in the New York City area, which is about a quarter of all his known work. I’ve spent a lot of time with them at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as at The Frick Collection. There is so little known about him and his process, but it is fairly evident he used optics or lenses to assist his ‘seeing.’ I’ve used an overhead projector for nearly 30 years as an aid to assist with composition, but more importantly to determine the scale of my own paintings. Being able to ‘project’ an image onto a canvas, is an aid or a tool, just as a brush or paint. For me, it was one thing to contemplate the Vermeers in person, but then to ‘paint’ them is another level of contemplation. It’s about trying to understand the use of color, layering, glazing and the way the light fills a space. It was very challenging to capture the softness of edges, especially within the faces. It’s really as if Vermeer painted with light. In the end, I learned it’s about softness of touch and how a few small flecks of paint can completely transform an image.

Vermeer: Woman Holding a Balance / Rijksmuseum, 2023, oil on linen mounted on MDF board, 13½ x 14½". Courtesy of the artist.

Vermeer: Woman in Blue Reading a Letter / Rijksmuseum, 2023, oil on linen mounted on MDF board, 12½ x 12". Courtesy of the artist.

“Vermeer has, and will always be, a fan favorite. His modest scaled paintings are jewels.”

David Hockney also supported Vermeer’s use of lenses, creating a furor in the art world. He responded, “The lens can’t draw a line, only the hand can do that, the artist’s hand and eye…This whole insight about optical aids doesn’t diminish anything; it merely suggests a different story.” Hockney was inspired by Vermeer’s “application of color and rendering of light” according to the David Hockney Foundation. In 1996, after seeing a blockbuster exhibition of Vermeer’s paintings at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, which I also had the pleasure of seeing, Hockney returned to his studio to bring some of Vermeer’s ideas into his own still lifes.

Vermeer: A View of Delft / Rijksmuseum, 2024, oil on linen, mounted on MDF board, 14¾ x 13". Courtesy of the artist.

Joe Fig in studio. Courtesy of the artist.

Fig explains, “I enjoy capturing the historical nature of exhibitions. They are up for a limited time and very fleeting. My paintings allow me to share these art exhibitions with people who may not have the chance to see them otherwise. I traveled to Amsterdam specifically for this project, as this was the last major gathering of works by the master painter in my lifetime. These works are considered among the most prized treasures of every museum collection and are rarely lent out, so this installment of my Contemplation series cements that moment in time.”

I also asked him about his response to the settings of rich, vibrant colors, in which the curators installed the paintings at the Rijksmuseum. Vermeer’s famed Girl with a Pearl Earring had been returned to the Mauritshuis before Fig could see it in Amsterdam. In The Hague, it was hung on a pale damask covered wall. On his visit there, Fig picked-up on the red walls in an adjacent gallery, and continued the red to people contemplating the painting—a woman with a red skirt and another with a red shawl.

Vermeer: The Procuress / Rijksmuseum, 2023, oil on linen mounted on MDF board, 14 x 12¾". Courtesy of the artist.

“I loved the installation of the Vermeer exhibition,” he recounts. “The Rijksmuseum did an outstanding job with the exhibition design but also with crowd management and spreading the work out across many rooms and providing their own contemplation space between each work. Additionally, and maybe most importantly, they limited the number of attendees so that the exhibition was not overly crowded. It created a very comfortable and relaxed viewing experience. One did not feel rushed or forced through in any way. In regards to the rich, vibrant wall colors and heavy complimentary curtains that framed the works and their areas, the colors were exceptional and played well with the chosen works. I was very aware of the color choices while making my paintings of the exhibition, noticing certain colors that reflected well with the works and the setting they occupied. For example, Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, was alone in a small room with rich green walls and deeper green drapes framing it. It was the only wall within the entire exhibition that was green. It beautifully complimented the green/gold curtains within the Vermeer.”

The museum notes, “Back in his Sarasota, Florida, studio, Fig studied the photographs from his visit. He carefully selected the details and painstakingly configured the placement and scale of the spectators to perfect the balance of light, shadow and color before he started to paint on canvas—a part of the process Fig calls ‘contemplation.’” The paintings are extraordinarily diminutive; nearly all are less than 14-inches square.

Vermeer: The Milkmaid / Rijksmuseum, 2023, oil on linen mounted on MDF board, 103⁄8 x 12½". Courtesy of the artist.

The curator of Contemplating Vermeer, Rangsook Yoon, comments, “Fig has been exploring our collective and individual experiences of engaging with artwork in public spaces for over a decade. Much like a visual anthropologist, he has an astute interest in distilling what we see and how we physically experience it in real time and space. In Contemplating Vermeer, he further challenged himself by recording Vermeer’s jewel-like paintings along with the museum visitors…Vermeer’s paintings are known for their contemplative moods, and Fig captures the awe viewers experience, allowing us to vicariously participate in that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Fig’s meticulous, quiet paintings with lush colors, in turn, make us hyper-aware of our act of looking and the roles both artist and viewer play in the sphere of artistic exchange.” —

Joe Fig: Contemplating Vermeer
Nov. 17, 2024-April 13, 2025
Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design
1001 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236
(941) 309-4300, www.sarasotaartmuseum.org