Explore the Reception of this artwork, The Allegory of Faith.
Many art historians have considered the painting one of Vermeer's less successful works. Cant, for instance, calls it "harder, more brittle, less convincing. Faith herself appears uncomfortable: finely dressed, she appears too worldly to be a spiritual symbol, too solid to appear transported, the intimacy too forced and her expression too artificial."According to Wheelock, "[T]he iconographic demands of this subject strained the credibility of his realistic approach. While essential for the painting's symbolic content, the ecstatic pose of the woman and the crushed snake seem incongruous within this Dutch setting." Walter Liedtke objected to Wheelock's point by asserting that the artist took a very realistic approach primarily in depicting the terrestrial globe and reflections in the glass sphere. Instead, according to Liedtke, the painting is best compared to contemporary Dutch paintings illustrating abstract concepts, including Adriaen Hanneman's Allegory of the Peace (1664; still in situ at the Eerste Kamer in the Binnenhof), a histrionic picture showing how reticent Vermeer was in this work; and Karel Dujardin's Allegory of the Immortal Fame of Art Vanquishing Time and Envy (1675; Historisches Museum, Bamberg); Gabriel Metsu's The Triumph of Justice (late 1650s; Mauritshuis, The Hague); Adriaen van de Velde's The Annunciation (1667; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)as well as works by Van Honthorst and early works of De Lairesse.
symbol Adriaen van de Velde Amsterdam Karel Dujardin Gabriel Metsu Mauritshuis Walter Liedtke Adriaen Hanneman