Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer van Delft /joˈɦɑnəs vərˈmeːr vɑn dɛlft/ (baptized in Delft on October 31, 1632- Delft, December 15, 1675), called by his contemporaries Joannis ver Meer or Joannis van der Meer and even Jan ver Meer, is one of the most renowned Dutch painters of Baroque art. He lived during the so-called Dutch Golden Age, in which the United Provinces of the Netherlands experienced an extraordinary political, economic and cultural flourishing.
Vermeer's complete works are very small; Only 33 to 35 paintings are known, this could be because he painted for patrons, on commission, rather than for the art market.
He painted other works, now lost, which are known from old auction records. His first works were of a historical nature, but he achieved fame thanks to his costumbrista painting, often considered a genre, which forms the majority of his production. His best-known paintings are View of Delft and Girl with a Pearl Earring . In his lifetime he was a moderately successful painter. He did not have an easy life, perhaps due to the small number of paintings he produced, and at his death he left his wife and eleven children in debt.
Virtually forgotten for two centuries, from the mid-19th century Vermeer's painting was widely recognized. Théophile Thoré contributed to the consecration of Vermeer with some highly appreciative newspaper articles. He is currently considered one of the greatest painters of the Netherlands. He is also particularly renowned for his mastery of the use and treatment of light.
Biography
There is little information about the life of Johannes Vermeer, only some basic facts noted in records and legal documents, as well as comments about him from other artists. Because of this, Thoré dubbed it the "Sphinx of Delft".
The date of birth is not precisely known, although it is known that he was baptized as a Christian in the Protestant church Nieuwe Kerk in the city of Delft on October 31, 1632, under the name of Joannis. He was the second child, and only son, of Reynier Jansz and Digna Baltens. His father came from Antwerp, and moved to Amsterdam in 1611, working as a silk weaver, a trade then typical of the middle class. In 1615 he married Digna, born in Antwerp, moving under the name Vos to Delft, where in 1641 he opened an inn called la Mechelen in memory of a famous beffroi (bell tower) of Mechelen (Mechelen in Flemish) that was located in the vicinity of the “halle” or market square of the city of Delft. There Joannes carried out the trade duties when he was almost a child; after his father's death in 1652, Joannes inherited the premises with his father's business affairs. In addition, Reynier Jansz officially belonged to the Delft Guild of Saint Luke as an art dealer. There Jansz met painters such as Pieter van Steenwyck, Balthasar van der Ast and Pieter Groenewegen.
However, although Vermeer van Delft was from a Protestant family, he married a young Catholic named Catharina Bolnes in April 1653. It was an unfortunate marriage: in addition to the religious differences (very on edge for that time), the family of the wife was richer than the Vermeer. It seems that he himself would have converted before marriage because his progeny had names from the Catholic saints; In addition -among other things- one of his paintings called The Allegory of Faith, reflects faith in the Eucharist, but it is not known if it refers to Vermeer's faith or that of his client. Shortly after the nuptials, the couple moved into the home of Catharina's mother, Maria Thins, a wealthy widow who lived in the Catholic quarter of the city. Vermeer would have lived here with all of his family for the rest of his life. Maria played a fundamental role in the work of this painter: not only was the first granddaughter named after her, she also used her income to achieve fame for her son-in-law in the art world. Johannes and his wife had fifteen children, four of whom died before christening.
Training
There is no certain information about his training as a painter. He became a member of the Guild of San Lucas on December 29, 1653 as a free painter. This fact had to be preceded by an extensive training of six years of apprenticeship, because only as a teacher could one be a member of the guild. It is possible that Vermeer was a student of Leonaert Bramer, a hypothesis that has not received much attention due to differences in style, despite the fact that a relationship between the two has been documented. Contacts with Gerard ter Borch have also been shown, and it has also been speculated that he was a student of Carel Fabritius, who in turn had been educated in Rembrandt's workshop. This hypothesis was widely accepted since it was defended in the XIX century by Théophile Thoré and is still widespread, but today experts doubt its veracity. Instead, Pieter de Hooch, who lived in Delft between 1652 and 1661, is often mentioned as one of Vermeer's main influences, since Hooch's refined and sharp style can be recognized in Vermeer's costumbrista painting..
Family life and work
Johannes Vermeer married Catharina Bolnes on April 20, 1653 in Schipluy, a town near Delft. Catharina's mother, Maria Thins, was initially opposed to the marriage. One of the reasons could be Vermeer's Calvinist confession, while Catharina Bolnes was a Catholic. Only after the recommendation of the Catholic painter Leonaert Bramer did Maria Thins decide to accept the marriage. Whether Vermeer became a Catholic or not remains disputed.
In 1660, Vermeer moved with his wife to his mother-in-law's house on the Oude Langendijk. With Catharina Bolnes he had fifteen children, of whom at least four died as children. It seems that Johannes Vermeer did not earn enough money to feed his large family. Since he painted an average of only two paintings a year, he had to have other sources of funding. It is known that he helped his mother in the Mechelen tavern, in Delft's Great Market, which she had inherited on her husband's death and where Vermeer most likely had his art business installed, a widespread activity among Dutch painters of the 17th century. In the years 1662 and 1663, as well as in 1670 and 1671, Vermeer was dean of the guild (or gulde) of Saint Luke. Like all artisans of the XVII century, he had to belong to a guild in order to carry out his activity and this, in turn, set the rules by which its members worked. The dean position was very influential, showing that Vermeer was a respected figure in Delft.
Vermeer saw in his lifetime that his paintings fetched high prices. He painted few pictures for the free art market; His paintings were mostly for patrons, such as the baker Hendrick van Buyten. But it is not known if the patrons commissioned the paintings from the painter or if they only had a preferential right to purchase.It has already been mentioned that in addition to his artistic activity, Vermeer worked as an art expert. Thus, for example, he verified the authenticity of a collection of Venetian and Roman paintings that the art dealer Gerrit van Uylenburgh wanted to sell for 30,000 guilders to the Elector of Brandenburg Frederick William I. He traveled to The Hague in 1672, where he examined the paintings together with the painter Hans Jordaens. He denied the authenticity of the paintings before a notary, declaring that the value of the paintings was a maximum of one tenth of the asking price.
Last years and death
In the last years of his life his economic conditions worsened, having to request credits. Because of the Franco-Dutch War that began in 1672, he was unable to sell any more paintings. According to a letter dated April 30, 1676 from Catharina Bolnes asking for forgiveness of part of her debts, she commented that her husband had to sell paintings that she traded during the war at a lower price than her value..
In 1675, Vermeer fell ill and died within a few days. On December 15, 1675 he was buried in the family sepulcher in the Oude Kerk (Old Church, in Spanish) in Delft. His wife had to renounce her inheritance to cancel the debts and his assets went to creditors.
Work
His complete works comprise 33-35 paintings, difficult to date. There are still doubts about the authorship of the paintings Lady seated in a virginal , The young woman with a flute , Diana and her companions and Santa Praxedes . The relatively scant production of the preserved paintings has tempted scholars to attribute paintings to him again and again, which today are mostly considered false attributions.
Although for the time it is ascribed to the Baroque, the truth is that Vermeer's known painting is very different from that of his time, in certain aspects it is due to its "timelessness" and "crystallinity" closer to the work of Jan Van Eyck; Indeed: unlike the common baroque, Vermeer's work lacks many ornaments, it is aseptic, with an almost crystalline, clean, refined, and timeless air, as if it stopped the moment in a clear and eternal moment. His work is thus very unique in that it is very personal and therefore difficult to pigeonhole in a style; with a crystalline austerity and an obsessive fidelity (very foreign to the most common Baroque) Vermeer -as in the pearls that adorn the girls he has represented- perhaps without realizing it represents the fragility of life in portraits that would seem -using the current nomenclature - Hyperrealistic, although of a very thoughtful and quiet hyperrealism and profoundly intimate, in certain paintings it is closer to the dark Caravagian mannerism than the Baroque, this is evident in the Girl with a turban.
Several of Vermeer's early paintings are considered historical paintings. In the XVII century, this genre achieved the highest level of prestige, above the painting of portraits, landscapes, still lifes and animals. In Vermeer's time, historical painting included events from classical antiquity, myths and legends of saints, as well as ecclesiastical and biblical motifs. In the second half of the 1650s, Johannes Vermeer turned his interest towards painting urban scenes and manners. The reason for this change is not known, but it is assumed that Vermeer could not use the techniques of perspective and lighting in historical paintings as other pictorial genres allowed. The change in style could also have been brought about by the influence of Pieter de Hooch and Jan Steen, who both lived in Delft. Both included architectural and figurative elements of daily life in their paintings. Furthermore, Hooch, Steen and Vermeer may have been influenced by the Delft environment and introduced changes of content and style to their painting. This thesis could be supported by the fact that Steen's and Hooch's changes in style occurred after their arrival in Delft.
Historical painting
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In comparison with Vermeer's later works, the three early history paintings are large: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, at 160 × 142 centimeters, Diana and Her Companions , with 98.5 × 105 centimeters, and Santa Práxedes, with 101.6 × 82.6 centimeters. An example of the size of his later works is Girl with a Turban , only 45 × 40 centimeters.
In the painting Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, painted around 1654-1655, Vermeer takes up a scene from the Gospel of Saint Luke: Jesus, being in the market, is invited to eat at home of Martha. While Martha prepares the food, Mary listens to Jesus. Marta asks Jesus why she doesn't ask Mary to help her and Jesus answers: «Marta, Marta, you're worried and you lose yourself in a thousand things: only one is necessary. Mary has chosen the best part, which will not be taken from her." History was a frequently treated theme in painting since the XVI century , because it reflected well the problem of good works pointed out by the Protestants, who considered them a superficial action and for appearances. The composition is simple compared to other later works and in the form of a pyramid. Martha, with a basket of bread in her hand, stands behind Jesus, who is seated on a chair and whose head is surrounded by a faint halo. In the foreground, Maria is sitting on a stool, her head resting on her hand. Maria's gesture must have indicated reflection. As a sign of devotion in front of Jesus, she does not wear shoes. The outstretched arm of Jesus pointing to Mary should express that she had decided on the best activity for her. Vermeer used strong color contrasts between the white of the tablecloth and the red of Mary's bodice, as well as the blue of Jesus' robe.
Vermeer's second history painting, Diana and Her Companions, was painted around 1655-1656. Diana, also called Artemis, is the Greek goddess of the hunt and was considered especially chaste. In the painting she is represented sitting on a stone and surrounded by four nymphs. In art, Diana was often depicted in a short dress or bathing nude; Vermeer depicts her clothed, a concession to Puritanism that considered her nudity abject. Thus, a half-naked nymph standing behind Diana turns her back on the observer. The painting does not have much action, two nymphs are sitting with Diana on a stone, one is in the background and watches as the fourth washes Diana's feet. This ritual action creates a link with the Christian motif of the washing of Jesus' feet. The scene takes place at twilight, so the women's faces remain in shadow. The darkness and the diadem in the shape of a crescent moon are an allusion to the fact that Diana is often confused with Selene, goddess of the Moon. Faults have been found in the painting Diana and her companions , especially in the representation of the postures, for which reason doubts have been expressed repeatedly as to Vermeer's authorship. These doubts have not been able to be confirmed or denied up to the present.
Cityscapes
Vermeer painted two paintings related to his hometown: The Alleyway and View of Delft. Urban landscapes were usually the result of public or private commissions, very rarely painted for the free market. Reason why they reached higher prices than landscape painting.
The painting View of Delft was painted around 1660 or 1661. Vermeer probably painted it with the help of a camera obscura from a high floor. The height of his point of view is evident above all in the figures in the lower left corner. The painting shows a view of the city with the river Schie in the foreground. Vermeer arranged the architectural elements in the painting parallel to the edge of the canvas, just as he did his other paintings and unlike other painters, who try to convey inner city life with streets that jut out. He also foregrounded within the composition a triangular area of the riverbank. This element, which was introduced into painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, has been frequently used, for example in the painting View of the Zierikzee by Esaias van de Velde. Vermeer used mainly ocher and brown colors to color the landscape. On the shadowy buildings in the foreground and the hulls of the ships he placed colored dots to represent the joint structure and inlays. The light, which penetrates through the clouds, illuminates above all the buildings in the background and the tower of the Nieuwe Kerk. With this illumination of the church tower, Vermeer probably wanted to make a political statement. In the Nieuwe Kerk was the tomb of William of Orange, killed in an attack in 1584 in Delft, considered a hero of the resistance against Spain.
Moralizing painting
The Pimp, painted in 1656, is the first painting by Vermeer that can be classified as costumbrista painting. It is likely that Vermeer was inspired by the painting of the same name by Dirck van Baburen in the possession of his mother-in-law, Maria Thins, which appears in several of Vermeer's works as a hint of the subject matter. The bawd can be included in the category of Bordeeltje, brothel paintings, which are a subcategory of costumbrista painting. The canvas shows four people, two women and two men. Data is missing to classify the scene in detail, it could be a scene in a brothel as well as a home scene. In the first case, the woman on the right would be a prostitute and the man behind her would be a pimp. The woman dressed in black would be the pimp, who would have organized the business. On the other hand, if it were a home scene, the painting would represent the beginning of an extramarital relationship. In this case, the pimp would be a woman from the neighborhood who would have organized the meeting. As for the man on the left side, it could be Vermeer himself; this being the only self-portrait of him. Of the people portrayed, only the trunks are visible, since the legs are covered by a table that is in the foreground. The composition produces a sensation of distance from the scene in the observer. Since traditional paintings also had to transmit values, they often contained warnings. The wine, represented by the jug and the glass in the hand of the prostitute, whose cheeks are rosy with alcohol, should communicate that the human being should remain awake despite the temptations of the senses. The central aspect of the painting, the venality of love, is only indirectly represented, with the open hand of the prostitute waiting for the pimp's coin. Thus, Vermeer is much more restrained, compared to other painters who use more drastic signals, such as Frans van Mieris, who shows in the background of the painting The Soldier and the Maiden two dogs copulating.
The painting Sleeping Girl, which was painted around 1657, is another work by Vermeer with a moralizing message. The young painted woman is seated at a table covered with an oriental rug. The rug forms a triangle at the front of the table and Vermeer arranged it along with a jug of wine and a plate of fruit. The woman sleeps leaning on her hand, with her elbow on the table, in order to underline her leisure. Her dress reveals that she is not a maid, but the wife of the master of the house, in charge of the administration of the home. Johannes Vermeer had initially included several other significant elements in the painting to allow the woman to have more interaction. Thus, an X-ray study showed that there was a dog at the door and a man at the bottom left of the painting, which were later overpainted. With these elements the interpretation of the composition becomes easier. The motif of a taste for wine is taken up again in this painting thanks to the presence of the jug, but also in its title Girl drunk and sleeping at a table that was given to her at a sale on the 16th. May 1696: as a consequence of drinking wine, the housewife neglects her obligations at home.
Paintings of women
Most of the representations of women in Vermeer's paintings are related to a narrative in which musical instruments or household objects influence the perception of the action. Only three paintings deviate significantly from this tonic and can be called portraits.
It is very probable that the models, given the ages and aspects of those represented, the young women that Johannes Vermeer painted with loving detail, were his own daughters.
The painting Girl Reading a Letter, painted around 1657 and therefore in Vermeer's first phase, shows a woman with a letter, which determines the action in the painting. The element of the letter was taken up by Vermeer in other paintings. In this, the girl is located in the center of the painting, with a letter in her hand, in front of an open window. On the right side is a curtain, in the foreground a table. The woman is depicted in profile, but the viewer can see her face in a reflection in the window. That the letter is possibly a love letter can be read in details, such as the fountain full of apples and peaches, in relation to the story of Adam and Eve. The curtain in the foreground can reinforce this idea, since it is open as a sign of revelation, but it can also be an element of the composition, often used by Vermeer.
In most of Vermeer's depictions of women, morality plays an important role. Even in the paintings of women playing music the theme appears. An example is the painting Lady at the virginal or Lady standing near the clavichord, painted between 1673 and 1675. Even the instrument, a “virginal” is an indication of the virginity of the painted girl This fact can be deduced above all because in the Netherlands of the XVII century, strict care was taken that the woman arrived virgin at marriage. The painting on the wall, with the representation of Cupid, represents a contrast to this way of understanding morality.
Vermeer's best-known painting is his Girl with a Turban or Girl with a Pearl Earring, painted around 1665. Its fame is due mainly to its modern reception and its that the work was the image chosen to represent a successful exhibition at the Mauritshuis, in The Hague, in 1995 and 1996. The girl is represented from a close point and without narrative attributes, which notably differentiates this painting from the other paintings by Vermeer. The identity of the portrayed is unknown. She could be a model, but she could also be a commissioned work. The background of the painting is neutral and very dark, but multicolored and therefore not black. The dark background reinforces the clarity of the girl, especially that of her skin. Her head tilts slightly, giving her a dreamy air. The girl interacts with the viewer by looking directly at him and slightly opening her mouth, which in Dutch painting often indicates a conversation with the viewer. The girl's clothing was made in practically pure colors. The number of colors seen in the painting is limited. The girl's jacket is yellowish-brown in color and forms a contrast to the blue turban and white collar. The turban, with the yellow cloth falling back, is a sign of the interest that oriental culture aroused at the time, as a consequence of the wars against the Ottoman Empire. Thus, turbans became a highly appreciated and widespread accessory in Europe in the 17th century. Above all, a pearl stands out in the girl's ear, which shines in the shadow area of her neck.
Representation of sciences
In the painting The Geographer, painted in 1668 and 1669, as well as in the parallel painting The Astronomer, from 1668, Vermeer deals with science. He also refers to Cartography in other paintings, in which the background is occupied by maps. Cartography was a young science and was still developing. In the 17th century, maps were a luxury object, but, in addition to being a sign of wealth, in paintings de Vermeer also represent knowledge. In addition, the maps represent the power of the Netherlands as a commercial power, which traded with far away countries. Thanks to its empire, the Netherlands belonged to the most important colonial powers of the 17th century. An example of the use of maps in Vermeer's paintings is Soldier and Laughing Girl.
The Geographer shows the scientist in the middle of the canvas as the central motif. The geographer has his long hair tucked behind his ear and is dressed in a long robe. On the table in the foreground are a map and a blanket used to spread the maps. On the back cabinet is a globe. The scientist checks a distance on the map with the help of a compass, but at that moment he looks out the window. The light hits her face, indicating enlightenment and wisdom. The robe gives the geographer an air of mystery, which must be understood as a general perception of the scientist at the time.
With the representation of a geographer and an astronomer, Johannes Vermeer resumes an important paradigm shift. Until the 17th century it was frowned upon to deal with the extent, shape and history of the Earth, as well as the stars. This was understood as reckless and contrary to the divine plan. And despite this, sciences that studied the Earth and the stars appeared from the end of the XV century. Since the discovery of the Americas, Asia, and Africa by Europeans, merchants, navigators, and nobles have needed greater geographical knowledge, which was accumulated in books, maps, and globes.
Allegories
In addition to his realistic paintings, which usually deal with banal issues, Johannes Vermeer painted two allegories in which he personified abstract themes and took a position through symbols and references. The paintings are entitled Allegory of Faith, painted between 1671 and 1674, and Allegory of Painting or The Art of Painting. In them Vermeer drew on Cesare Ripa's knowledge of iconography.
The Art of Painting was painted around 1666 and has a size of 120×110 centimeters, which makes it one of the largest works painted by Vermeer. Many art historians consider this painting Vermeer's pictorial legacy. Thus, Hans Sedlmayr used the title In Praise of the Art of Painting. The painting's name can be traced back to the payment of debts after Vermeer's death, where it is said that "it is a painting, [...], in which the art of painting is represented."
The painting shows a painting workshop, possibly inspired by Vermeer's own, since an oak table like the one that can be seen in the painting appears on the painter's inventory list. On the table is a book, a symbol of wisdom and contemplation, and a mask, which must be understood as a representation of the sculpture. As the main character, the painter appears in the center, in front of an almost empty canvas. He has his back to the viewer, so he maintains his anonymity. In the background is a young woman who serves as a model for the painter. She wears a blue silk cape and a yellow skirt. In her left hand she has a book, in her right a trombone. On her head she wears a laurel wreath, representing eternal fame.
The empty canvas has been a symbol of the artistic idea that takes shape in the pictorial process since the Renaissance. The fact that the painter works on a painting while a mask remains on the table has been interpreted as the competition of the arts, the Paragone. In this way, painting triumphs over sculpture. Modern studies give almost certain that the woman is not simply a model or allegory of Fame, but that she represents the muse Clio, muse of History in Greek mythology. This interpretation is also supported by the map by Nicolaus Visscher hanging on the wall in the background, which shows the 17 former provinces of the Netherlands before the peace with Spain in 1609. The map is surrounded on both sides with views of cities and Clio appears with his trombone, which is a symbol of fame, in front of The Hague, with a view of the royal palace. This can be interpreted as Vermeer's homage to the House of Orange. The painting was painted at the beginning of the Franco-Dutch War, which lasted from 1672 to 1678, at a time of internal disorder in the Netherlands, in which hope fell on the Orange. In addition, a positive attitude towards the Holy Roman Empire is revealed, for example, through the lamp with the Habsburg double-headed eagle.
Drawings
No drawings have been found that can be safely attributed to Johannes Vermeer. The lack of it has caused many authors to assume that Vermeer did not need studies for his paintings. This idea is opposed by the controversial drawing Girl with a foot warmer which is attributed to Vermeer and dated to 1655. It is a drawing of 25.5 × 16.5 centimeters, drawn with chalk on blue paper and It is currently in the collection of the Weimar Palace Museum. The defenders of the attribution base it above all on stylistic similarities and the similarity of the monogram that appears on the foot warmer with the signatures on the paintings Girl reading a letter and View of Delft. Those who oppose it claim that blue paper only began to be made in later centuries. This is contradicted by a piece of news by Karel van Mander, before Vermeer and author of Schilderboeks. Van Mander described a student of the Delft portraitist Michiel Miereveld: "He is applied by investigating the more mature beauty of painting, in giving color he uses different ways invented by himself, he also draws in between on blue paper [...]" This indicates that blue paper existed in the Delft area long before Vermeer.
Evolution of his technique
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Vermeer's work was produced between 1654 and 1675. Only three of his paintings have a date and for the rest only the time of execution is estimated based on the style used.
The first one that has a date is la alcahueta from 1656. His style is far removed from the interiors and landscapes that have exalted him. There are two other paintings that must be from before that date, they are Christ in Mary's House and Mary's Rest, in both cases they are considered youthful works.
The genre of interiors with several characters represented in a room had been created between 1620-30 and had established itself in the Netherlands. In The Sleeping Young Woman, painted around 1657, probably after The Pimp, Vermeer confesses to being a follower of this genre.
In 1653, the painter Pieter de Hooch, three years older than Vermeer, had settled in Delft. Between 1658 and 1660 he made a series of interiors that must have astonished for their quality. His influence on Vermeer is confirmed in four paintings that clearly recall Hooch's manner. These are Girl reading a letter, Soldier and girl laughing, Lady drinking with a gentleman and The milkmaid. Vermeer reduces the characters to 1 or 2, but above all he is dedicated to representing the details with the utmost perfection, such as the polish of the wood or the softness of the fabrics. In paintings like the Lady Drinking with a Gentleman he achieves a unity, intimacy and serenity that surpasses Hooch's work.
The painters' Delft experiences with the urban landscape had a masterful moment in Hooch's series of paintings dated 1658, including the striking Inner Court. According to Albert Blankert, these paintings by Hooch must have prompted Vermeer to try painting exteriors. But Vermeer once again produced a better painting, The Alleyway, where instead of an in-depth approach as in Interior Courtyard, he represented on the same plane a succession of facades and doors with a lighter coloring and more precise modeling using his famous stippling technique. In this technique, also called pointillé (not to be confused with "pointillism"), transparent colors were produced by applying paint madly in granular layers to the canvas.
Possibly after The Alleyway, Vermeer ventured into a larger exterior landscape: View of Delft. It is a completely accurate and faithful view and it was surely helped by a camera obscura. In it he managed to express the impression of light with complete mastery.
These works, from The Girl Reading a Letter to View of Delft painted between 1656 and 1661, correspond to the same style. The same firm and energetic modeling is found in them and the color is applied in quite thick layers, especially in the light parts.
In his later works, the transition is estimated at 1662, Vermeer used another technique with delicate modeling, avoided sharp contrasts, employed dim lighting, and increasingly complex refinement. This is the case of Lady with two gentlemen and Woman with ewer.
Later, he produced seven paintings painted with meticulousness and a more mature style, painted between 1662 and 1666, since they do not belong to his last period, which emerged in 1667. They are Vermeer's best works.
The first three have a single female lead and are similar compositions. A horizontal table covered with a rug and various objects contrasts with the verticality of a standing woman. The drawing of lines and the modeling of forms are of great delicacy. These are the Reader in Blue, The Pearl Appraiser and The Girl with the Pearl Necklace. Each painting differs in light and color, in the girl with the necklace yellow and white dominate, the diffused light and blue are the colors of the reader in blue, while a light filtered by an orange curtain envelops the room in semidarkness. pearl appraiser. Vermeer arranged these figures in an activity that kept them motionless, seeking seclusion and harmony at rest.
- The summit moment of his art
Reader in blue (1662-66)
The Pearl Rater (1662-66)
The Music Lesson (1662-66)
The Art of Painting towards 1666
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In the next three and he sought to continue with the meticulousness of the three previous paintings of women and developing a much more complex space effect. Both in The music lesson and in The concert he established a powerful rhythm between the elements that follow one another from the foreground to the back wall where a series of rectangles (squares, mirror, clavichord) contribute to highlight this alignment of objects in depth. In the same vein she developed her great masterpiece The Art of Painting. There she articulated with a naturist execution, a complex composition and a space flooded with light, reaching her maximum level. Finally, also in The Girl with a Pearl Earring she achieved a very natural effect, focusing on the look of the young woman who constitutes the essence of the painting, dispensing with all accessories.
After the perfection of The Art of Painting it was difficult to continue progressing and Vermeer decided to change his style looking for stylization. Thus, in the painting Lady to the Virginal he dispenses with anecdotal details from other paintings. Lights and shadows are ordered more rigorously. In addition, to show that more simplified reality, he changes technique again. He abandons progressive color transitions and opts for the juxtaposition of light and dark colors. He made several paintings in this way like the astronomer at the Louvre, but where he managed to improve on this new technique is in The Lacemaker where he represented a woman concentrating on her work, he achieved it by focusing attention on the face and the hands and disregarding details that could divert attention. He achieved the same mastery in A lady who writes a letter and her servant where by combining usual elements he managed to represent a serenity not found in previous paintings.
The late style is extreme in Woman playing the guitar, some details are treated schematically, but Vermeer, who had always opted for immobile and calm figures, abandons his ideal that he had always sought by making people laugh and move to its protagonist. from 1672 they saw a few years of economic difficulties and it seems that he painted a series of commissioned works where his decadence is appreciated. It can be seen in paintings such as Allegory of Faith where he dispenses with his searches and his findings or in a seated woman playing the spinet where the decline of his creative force can also be seen as in the folds of the dress that already they do not have his mastery or the painting no longer has its light and appears in penumbra.
Throughout his life, Vermeer worked slowly and carefully using bright colors as well as some expensive pigments: like the deep blue that stands out in some of his works. There are no drawings that can be exactly attributed to Vermeer, and his paintings offer few clues to preliminary methods. There is no other artist of the 17th century who has used his early works, in such an exuberant way, the expensive pigment that manifests lapis lazuli or natural ultramarine tone. Vermeer not only used this technique in elements of this tone; the earthy and ocher colors had to be understood as warm light in a strongly illuminated painting, which reflected its multiple tones on the wall. This method was most likely inspired by Vermeer's understanding of Leonardo's observations, where he stated that the surface of every object shared the color of the adjacent object, meaning that no object is properly seen in its pure natural color.
Notable is the use of this effect with natural ultramarine in Lady with Two Gentlemen or Girl with a Glass of Wine. The shades of the red satin dress are painted with natural ultramarine, and thanks to this blue layered with paint, the superimposed mixture of red and vermilion acquires a soft purple, cold and crisp that is more powerful. Despite his financial problems, Vermeer continued to use natural ultramarine extensively; such is the case of the Lady seated in a virginal.
Importance
Artistic innovation
Johannes Vermeer was a forerunner in painting regarding the principles of composition. He used a balanced division of surfaces, with which he also expressed complex structures and situations simply and with few elements. Geometry had an important role in the composition. Vermeer used light in such a way that he almost gave the impression that he was painting outdoors. Also, he did not use shades of gray to represent shadows. Vermeer stood out in the restoration of light, texture, perspective and transparent colors.
Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh wrote to fellow painter Émile Bernard:
It is true that in the pair of paintings he painted, you can find the whole palette of colors; but joining the lemon yellow, pale blue and light grey is as characteristic of it, as the harmonisation of black, white, gray and rose in Velázquez.
Time and again it has been claimed that Vermeer used a camera obscura in his paintings to achieve precise positioning of his compositions. For example, Norbert Schneider wrote:
We know today that Vermeer used a dark camera in most of his paintings and, in fact, in a way that does not conceal the conditions of that medium, but makes them visible, as can be recognized in the folly of the edges and the points of light, the famous "pointillé". His paintings thus attain an "abstract" quality, since they do not reproduce reality as it is, but as it is seen, [...] It can be said that the “dark camera becomes a source of style”
David Hockney, among other historians and promoters of the Hockney-Falco thesis, has also speculated that Vermeer used a camera obscura, confirming this idea by certain effects of light and perspective that resulted from handling lenses, instead of direct use of the camera. human view.
Not all experts share this opinion. A multitude of studies have been devoted to the subject. Also among those scholars who confidently affirm that Vermeer used the camera obscura, important debates still rage about how often he used it. The discussions began when the American lithographer Joseph Pennell first noted in 1891 the "photographic perspective" of the camera. painting Military and laughing girl. Charles Seymour and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. state that Vermeer used a camera obscura in the paintings View of Delft, Allegory of Painting, Young Woman with Red Hat and The Lacemaker because of the halo visual effect. Jørgen Wadum instead places more emphasis on Vermeer's development and his quality as a perspective painter: thirteen paintings have a small hole that was made with a needle in the canvas.
Consideration and fame
Jan Vermeer and his work remained largely unknown during his lifetime, as his paintings found no audience beyond a small circle of connoisseurs and followers. The reason is his limited production and that his paintings only occasionally came to auction, and although the quality of Vermeer's work was appreciated, his work hardly attracted attention. Johannes Vermeer was not completely forgotten during the 17th and 18th centuries, but he was rarely mentioned in the literature. Even so, his work was generally praised. At the beginning of the 19th century interest in Johannes Vermeer grew, despite the fact that little biographical information was available. Vermeer's paintings were highly praised in auction catalogs and fetched good prices. On the other hand, Vermeer's work was taken up by other artists, such as Wybrand Hendriks, who copied the View of Delft and painted Vermeer-style folkloric paintings. In 1821, Christian Josi published an article with the title Discours sur l' état ancien et moderne des arts dans les Pays-Bas , in which he tried to gather all the information about Vermeer and that exalted the work of the painter
After the painting View of Delft was particularly praised in specialized literature, King William I decided to buy the work through the Mauritshuis. Vermeer's work in the royal gallery of the Mauritshuis caught the eye of British art collector John Smith. Smith mentioned Vermeer in his eight-volume catalog of paintings from France, Flanders and the Netherlands. Smith explained Vermeer's short fame with his scant work. As a consequence, John Smith was surprised by his ability, taking him as an imitator and student of another painter.
Starting in the mid-19th century, Vermeer's painting was widely received. The French publicist and politician Théophile Thoré was introduced to Dutch painting from the 17th century during his travels in the Netherlands and Belgium, between the which was that of Vermeer. Thoré recognized that the realism in the representation of daily life corresponded well with the aesthetics of his time. He helped establish Vermeer with three very positive newspaper articles. In the texts, William Bürger, the pseudonym of Théophile Thoré, cataloged Vermeer's works and characterized his painting. With the works of Thoré-Bürger Vermeer entered for the first time in an important way in the literature on Art. The impressionists reached conclusions similar to those of Vermeer, through the observation of light, in whose paintings light was reproduced naturally. Thus, Vermeer's work gained more and more appreciation.
At the beginning of the 20th century, paintings by Vermeer were discovered in private collections, such as Young Woman with red hat. These works had been attributed to other painters, such as Gabriël Metsu and Pieter de Hooch. But Thoré-Bürger and other critics and art historians also attributed paintings to Vermeer that were not his, such as those by Jacobus Vrel and Jan Vermeer van Haarlem. The study of Vermeer in the 20th century concerned itself above all with the exact identification of authorship. It was not until 1935 that the Rotterdam museum dedicated its first solo exhibition to him.
Vermeer is one of the most famous Dutch painters today. Thus, in 1995 and 1996, 460,000 people visited the exhibition Johannes Vermeer in The Hague for 14 weeks, where 22 of his works were exhibited. More extraordinary was that the tickets sold out in advance sale. In Washington D.C. the exhibition was visited by 327,551 people.
Commercial success
Johannes Vermeer was supported by patrons, who bought most of his paintings. An important collection ended up in the hands of Jacob Dissius and his wife Magdalena van Ruijven, owners of a printing press, which according to an inventory carried out after 1682 owned 19 works by Vermeer. Some came from her father, Pieter Claesz van Ruijven. Others may have been bought by Magdalena van Ruijven, Jacob Dissius or his father, Abraham Jacobsz Dissius, already at the sale of the inheritance, held on May 15, 1677 at the premises of the Guild of Saint Luke, 26 works by Vermeer were sold. So it is likely that both families bought paintings by the painter.
Commercially, Vermeer's works have always had a prominent position. On May 16, 1696 at an auction by Gerard Houet, in which 134 paintings were put up for auction, 21 of them were apparently by Vermeer. The prices demanded for these paintings were between 17 and 200 guilders. The fact that his paintings fetched such high prices is a sign that he was a sought after artist. At the same auction, for example, a portrait by Rembrandt sold for just over seven guilders and the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist attributed to Carel Fabritius sold for just over seven guilders, underscoring the value of Vermeer.
With the growing fame and appreciation of Vermeer's work in the early 19th century, so did prices., The Geographer was sold in 1798 for seven louis and in 1803 sold again for 36 louis. A year later, the Dutch state bought View of Delft at the express wish of the king, for 2,900 guilders, a very high amount at the time, and gave it to the Mauritshuis. At the end of the XIX trading more and more Vermeer paintings at ever higher prices. American millionaires such as John Pierpont Morgan, Henry Frick, Henry Marquand, and Isabella Stewart Gardner bought works by Vermeer and were courted by museums to loan them or perhaps transfer ownership. An example of the development of prices is the Allegory of Faith. In 1899 Abraham Bredius bought this painting for about 700 guilders and lent it to the Mauritshuis and the Boymans van Beuningen museum. Bredius eventually sold the painting for about $300,000 to the American Michael Friedsam, who bequeathed it to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. For 625,000 guilders, Henri W. A. Deterding bought the painting The Alleyway from the collection in 1921 Collectie Six, named after collector Jan Six, and gifted it to the Dutch state. By will of Deterding the painting is displayed in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The development of prices and the great demand made Vermeer an attractive author for counterfeiters.
In 1940, Adolf Hitler bought The Art of Painting (Allegory of Painting) for 1,650,000 Reichsmark from the Austrians Eugen and Jaromir Czernin. Taxes of some 500,000 reichsmark were also paid by Hitler. Previously there had already been several offers, among others, one of more than six million dollars from the United States Secretary of State Andrew Mellon, but the export permit was not given. The painting was bought for the art museum that he had planned in Linz and, after its purchase, the painting remained temporarily in Munich. Towards the end of World War II it was hidden in the Altaussee salt mine and after the war it was borrowed by the Americans. They handed over The Art of Painting to the Art History Museum of Vienna.
In 2004, Steve Wynn auctioned off Young Woman Sitting at the Virginal for $30 million. It was the first time a Vermeer had been auctioned since 1921.
Fakes
Because Vermeer's authorship is only considered certain for 37 paintings, there have been rumors over and over again that there are more paintings, the location of which would be unknown. This circumstance has been taken advantage of for forgers to create paintings by Vermeer supposedly unknown up to now and sell them on the art market. The demand for Vermeer's paintings was so great that it could not be covered by his meager work.
The Dutchman Han van Meegeren (1898-1947) created forgeries so perfect that even Vermeer expert Abraham Bredius carried out expert opinions on the authenticity of these works. Among others, Bredius confirmed the authenticity of van Meegeren's painting Supper at Emmaus, bought by the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam in 1938. Even the Dutch State bought the fake Vermeer The Footwasher in 1943, which is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Also Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring bought a Han van Meegeren forgery for the collection that he was creating through looting in the occupied countries of Europe during World War II. The forgery was so good that the Dutch authorities also considered it authentic and accused him of treason for having sold Dutch art goods to the Nazis. To prove that he was the author of the painting in question, Van Meegeren composed a new painting attributable to Vermeer under the careful scrutiny of the Dutch police. The Dutch authorities changed the charges from treason to forgery, for which Van Meegeren was sentenced to two years in prison.
In addition to Bredius, Wilhelm von Bode and the director of the Mauritshuis, Wilhelm Martin, also carried out positive expert reports for Vermeer forgeries. These paintings currently belong to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
In the meantime, there are study methods with which it is possible to ascertain whether a painting attributed to Johannes Vermeer was painted at the right time. Counterfeits using modern lead or modern lead compounds in the pigments can be detected using the lead-210 method. Lead-210 is a lead isotope of the uranium-238 decay family, created from radium 226 with a median life time of 22 years. This very short half-life can be used to identify more recent counterfeits. In addition, lead from the Mittelgebirge of Central Europe was used in the Netherlands in Vermeer's time. From the XIX century, lead from America and Australia began to be used, so that ceruse (the white pigment) has different trace elements and isotopic composition distinguishable from ancient ceruse. This was also characterized by a high content of silver and antimony, while modern ceruse no longer contains these chemical elements, which are separated from lead by reduction.
Later influence
Painting
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In painting, Vermeer was a major influence on Salvador Dalí. As a child, Dalí was fascinated by a reproduction of Vermeer's The Lacemaker that he hung in his father's office. In 1934, he painted some works related to works by Johannes Vermeer, such as Masquerader, intoxicated by the limpid atmosphere ("He who participates in a masked ball, intoxicated by a limpid atmosphere") or Spectrum of Vermeer from Delft, depicting Vermeer as a kneeling dark figure, so that the leg forms a table. On the table is a bottle and a small glass. In the painting Paysage avec elements enigmatiques ("Landscape with Enigmatic Elements") from the same year, Jan Vermeer is depicted in front of the easel. In 1936, he painted Apparition de la ville de Delft (“Apparition in the Villa of Delft”), which shows a part of the View of Delft in the background. Salvador Dalí asked the Louvre for permission to make a copy of The Lacemaker, which was granted. In this way he painted in 1955 the copy and the painting Peintre paranoïaque-critique de la Dentellière de Vermeer («Paranoid-critical painter of Vermeer's lacemaker»), in which he explodes the painting in the form of rhinoceros horns. This form had already appeared in Dalí's childhood, because when looking at the painting he had to think of the horns.
Salvador Dalí admired Vermeer and compared The Lacemaker to the Sistine Chapel, literally saying:
Michelangelo with his Final Judgment is no more extraordinary than Vermeer van Delft with his lace in the Louvre, a square palm. When the plastic dimensions are taken into account, it can be said that The ladder is extraordinary in front of the Sistine Chapel.Dalí
Literature
The allusion to the painting View of Delft in the work of the French writer Marcel Proust has great fame. Proust traveled to the Netherlands in October 1902 and saw there, among other paintings, also View of Delft by Vermeer, which he liked the most. When a collection was shown in the spring of 1921 of paintings by Dutch masters in the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, Proust went to see it, despite the fact that he was ill with asthma and had withdrawn from public life, since they were shown View of Delft, The Milkmaid and Girl with a Pearl Earring. On the entrance stairs to the exhibition he had a fit of weakness, which he blamed on the potatoes he had eaten earlier. Marcel Proust took up both the view of Delft and his attack of weakness in his monumental work A la recherche du temps perdu (written between 1913 and 1927, "In search of lost time"), specifically in his fifth part, La Prisonnière (1923, «The Prisoner») with her character Bergotte. Thanks to a critic, Bergotte sees her attention fixed by a "piece of yellow wall" in the View of Delft . This piece of wall is still a mystery today, since it has not been found in the painting. The place is described in the original French as Le petit pan de mur jaune avec un auvent and du tout petit pan de mur jaune ("the little piece of wall with a canopy »). Since this element is not in the painting, it is currently assumed that it was either invented by Proust for his novel, or due to a failure in his memory.
Recently, Vermeer has gained great popularity thanks to the novel Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. The book deals with the question of the identity of the woman who appears in the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring, developing a fictional story around the maid Griet, who acts as a model. Also fictional is the story of Susan Vreeland in her book The Girl in Blue Hyacinth. In the book, a fictional Vermeer painting, Girl with Sewing Box, which would show the painter's daughter, is shown through its owners, from the present to Vermeer himself, who is only treated at the end of the book
With The Vermeer Enigma, the painter reaches children's literature. The book by the author Blue Balliett deals mainly with the paintings The Geographer and Lady in Yellow Writing. The latter is stolen in the story to draw attention to the fact that some paintings have been mistakenly attributed to Vermeer.
In 2005, Luigi Guarnieri wrote the novel La doppia vita di Vermeer ("Vermeer's Double Life"), which tells the story of the forger Han van Meegeren, who became famous through his forgeries from Vermeer.
Cinema
Vermeer's work not only left its mark on Dalí's painting, but also on his cinematographic work. In 1954 Dalí and Robert Descharnes began work on making a film entitled L'Histoire prodigieuse de la Dentelliere et du Rhinoceros or also L'aventure prodigieuse de la Dentelliere et du Rhinoceros. The film, related to The Lacemaker and the Rhinoceros, was never finished. Also in the surrealist film An Andalusian Dog from 1929, co-written by Dalí, The Lacemaker appears briefly as an illustration in a book.
Peter Greenaway attempted to replicate Vermeer's works in his film A Zed & Two Noughts (1985; "A Z and Two Zeros"). In Jon Jost's film All the Vermeers in New York (1990; "All the Vermeers in New York"), Vermeer is often mentioned when a French actress meets an agent at the Metropolitan Museum.
In 2003, British director Peter Webber adapted the book Girl with a Pearl Earring. The protagonist, Griet, the maid, was played by Scarlett Johansson and Vermeer by Colin Firth. The film Girl with a Pearl Earring won several awards and was nominated for three Oscars.
In 2013 Teller directed the documentary film Tim's Vermeer. Inventor Tim Jenison is seen in a 5-year process to reproduce the painting Music Lesson recreating the original models and technique.
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Annex: IV edition of the Goya Awards