Jan Vermeer van Delft, also called Johannes Vermeer (baptized October 31, 1632 in Delft; buried December 15, 1675 there; contemporary Joannis ver Meer, Joannis van der Meer), is one of the most famous Dutch painters of the Baroque period. He worked in the era of the Dutch Golden Age, when the country experienced political, economic and cultural prosperity.
The scope of Jan Vermeer's complete works is very small, with 37 paintings known today, although more titles have survived from old auction records. Vermeer's first works were history paintings, but he became known for his genre scenes, which make up a large part of his work.
The best known works, through today's reception, are The View of Delft and The Girl with the Pearl Earrings. Due to the small number of known paintings, he was incorrectly credited with paintings by other artists in the 19th century, a time of increased interest in research on Jan Vermeer and his work. Today, however, his body of work is generally accepted by researchers.
Johannes Vermeer's Life
Little is known about the life of Jan Vermeer van Delft. He was baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft on October 31, 1632, and was the second child and only son of his parents. His father Reynier Jansz was originally from Antwerp, but moved to Amsterdam in 1611 and worked as a silk weaver.
In 1615 he married Digna Baltens and went to Delft under the name Vos, where he ran an inn. He continued to work as a weaver on the side and also officially joined the St. Luke's Guild in Delft as an art dealer. There Vermeer met painters such as Pieter Steenwyck, Balthasar van der Ast and Pieter Groenewegen.
Johannes Vermeer's Education
There is no definite information about Jan Vermeer's training as a painter. He became a member of the St. Luke's Guild as a Freimeister on December 29, 1653. This admission must have been preceded by a six-year apprenticeship with a painter recognized by the guild. It has been suggested that Vermeer may have been a pupil of Leonaert Bramer.
Although this hypothesis met with little approval due to major differences in style, there is documentary evidence of a connection between Vermeer and him. Furthermore, there is evidence of contact with Gerard ter Borch. In addition, it was assumed that Vermeer had been a student of Carel Fabritius, who had been trained by Rembrandt.
This hypothesis was generally accepted for a long time since William Thoré-Bürger in the 19th century and is still widespread today, but is now doubted by art scholars. Instead, Pieter de Hooch, who lived in Delft between 1652 and 1661, is thought to have played a formative role in Jan Vermeer's painting, as de Hooch's style was identified in Vermeer's genre painting and recognized as refined.
Johannes Vermeer's Family life and work
Jan Vermeer married Catharina Bolnes on April 20, 1653, in Schipluiden, a village near Delft. The marriage initially met with opposition from Catharina's mother, Maria Thins.
One reason for this may have been Vermeer's Calvinism, while Catharina Bolnes was Catholic. Only after the intercession of the Catholic Leonaert Bramer did Maria Thins give up her reservations about a marriage. Whether Vermeer converted to the Catholic Church is disputed.
In 1660 Vermeer and his wife moved into the household of his mother-in-law at the Oude Langendijk. With Catharina Bolnes he had fifteen children, four of whom died in early childhood. Jan Vermeer seems to have earned a relatively large amount of money at this time, because he was able to feed his children without any problems.
Since he painted an average of only two paintings a year, he must have had other sources of income. It is known that he assisted his mother in running the tavern "Mechelen" at the Great Market in Delft, which she had inherited after the death of her husband and where Vermeer in all probability also ran his art business, a common sideline activity of Dutch painters of the 17th century.
In 1662 and 1663, as well as 1670 and 1671, Vermeer was dean of the Guild of St. Luke. Since in the 17th century every craftsman and artist, in order to practice his profession, had to be a member of a guild that set the rules for it, the position of dean was an influential one and proves that Jan Vermeer was a respected figure in Delft.
Already during his lifetime Jan Vermeer was able to achieve good prices for his paintings. Vermeer painted only a few of his pictures for the free art market. His paintings mostly went to patrons such as the baker Hendrick van Buyten.
It is not known whether Vermeer was commissioned to paint the pictures or whether the patrons only had a right of first refusal on his works. In addition to his artistic activities, Jan Vermeer also worked as an art expert. For example, he verified the authenticity of a collection of Venetian and Roman paintings that the art dealer Gerard Uylenburgh wanted to sell to Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, for a sum of 30,000 florins.
Vermeer traveled to The Hague in 1672, where he examined the paintings with another artist, Hans Jordaens. He disputed their authenticity before a notary and declared that they were worth at most a tenth of the asking price.
Johannes Vermeer Last years and death
In the last years of his life, Vermeer's economic situation deteriorated and he had to take out loans. As a result of the Franco-Dutch War, which broke out in 1672 and lasted until 1679, he was unable to sell any more paintings.
Tombstone of Jan Vermeer in Delft
In addition, Catharina Bolnes stated in a request for partial debt forgiveness dated April 30, 1676, that during the war her husband had had to sell paintings he was trading below value. In 1675 Vermeer became ill and died within a few days. On December 15, 1675,
he was buried in the family vault in the Oude Kerk in Delft. His wife had to renounce her right of inheritance to pay off the debts and transferred it to the creditors.
Johannes Vermeer's Work
As far as we know today, Jan Vermeer's complete works comprise 37 paintings, all of which are difficult to date. However, in the case of the paintings Young Woman at the Virginal, Girl with a Flute, Diana with her Companions, and The Holy Praxedis, there is doubt about Vermeer's authorship;
in October 2022, the National Gallery in Washington informed us that a team of experts now considers Girl with a Flute to be the work of a Vermeer pupil.[4] The relatively large number of surviving works by Vermeer himself has prompted research into other works by Vermeer.
The relatively small number of surviving works by his own hand repeatedly prompted researchers to attribute other works to him, most of which are now recognized as false. In addition, there are several other paintings that are known only through old auction catalogs or engravings, so that the question of their authenticity must remain open according to current knowledge.
Some of the earliest paintings by Jan Vermeer can be assigned to the genre of history painting. This occupied the highest position in painting in the 17th century, ahead of portraiture, landscape, still life and animal painting.
At the time of Vermeer, history painting included the depiction of events of antiquity, myths and legends of saints, as well as ecclesiastical and biblical motifs. In the second half of the 1950s, Jan Vermeer switched from history paintings to city views and genre scenes. The reason for this change is not known.
However, it is believed that Vermeer could not use history painting to reproduce light conditions and perspective to the extent that he could in the other genres of painting. The influence of Pieter de Hooch and Jan Steen, who both lived in Delft at the time of the change in style, may also have brought this about.
Both worked with figurative and architectural elements of everyday life in their paintings. Furthermore, de Hooch, Steen, and Vermeer may have been influenced by the atmosphere in Delft at the time in such a way that they introduced innovations in content and style into their art. This thesis is supported by changes in Steen's and de Hooch's style after their arrival in Delft.
History paintings
Compared to Vermeer's later works, his three early history paintings, Christ with Mary and Martha at 160 cm × 142 cm, Diana with her Companions at 98.5 cm × 105 cm, and The Holy Praxedis at 101.6 cm × 82.6 cm, had a large format. An example of the size of the later works is The Girl with the Pearl Earrings, which measures only 45 cm × 40 cm.
Christ with Mary and Martha (c. 1654/1655)
In the painting Christ with Mary and Martha, painted around 1654/1655, Jan Vermeer takes up a passage from the Gospel of Luke: Jesus Christ stops at the home of Mary and Martha. While Martha prepares the meal, Mary listens to Jesus. Martha asks him why he does not ask Mary to help her, and receives the answer: "Martha, Martha, you are worrying and struggling a lot. But only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good part;
it will not be taken away from her" (Lk 10:38-42 EU). This pericope was a frequent subject in painting since the 16th century, because it illustrated the problem of the good work pointed out by the Reformers, who considered it a superficial, external act. Compared to Vermeer's later works, the composition is simple and based on the scheme of the pyramid.
Martha stands with a bread basket in her hand behind Jesus, who is seated on a chair and whose head is surrounded by a faint halo. In the foreground, Mary sits on a stool with her head propped up.
This gesture of Mary is meant to indicate thoughtfulness. As a sign of humility, she is not wearing shoes. Jesus' outstretched arm pointing at her is meant to signify to Martha that her sister has chosen the better activity.
Vermeer used bold color contrasts between the white of the tablecloth and the red of Mary's top, and the blue of Jesus' robe. Vermeer used smalt for Christ's blue robe instead of the usual ultramarine.
Vermeer's second history painting, Diana with her Companions, was done around 1655/1656. Diana, also called Artemis, is the virgin goddess of the hunt from Greek mythology. In the painting she is depicted sitting on a stone and surrounded by four nymphs.
Diana with her companions (around 1655/1656)
Diana was depicted wearing a short robe or also fond of bathing. Vermeer depicts her clothed, a concession to the spirit of the times, which found nudity offensive.
Thus, even a half-dressed nymph behind Diana turns away from the viewer and turns her back on him. The image has little action; two nymphs sit with Diana on the stone, one stands in the background and watches as the fourth washes one of Diana's feet. This ritual action establishes a reference to the motif of the washing of the feet at the Last Supper.
It is dawning, which is why the women's faces are in shadow. The darkness and the diadem with the crescent moon are an allusion to the frequent equation of Diana with the moon goddess Selene.
The image of Diana with her companions was said to have shortcomings, especially in the depiction of the postures. For this reason, stylistic doubts were repeatedly raised as to whether it was a work by Vermeer at all. These doubts can be neither confirmed nor refuted to this day.
City views
Vermeer painted two pictures with reference to his hometown: the Street in Delft and the View of Delft. City views were mostly painted as a result of public or private commissions, rarely for the free market. They therefore fetched higher prices than non-commissioned landscape paintings.
View of Delft (about 1660/1661)
The picture View of Delft was probably painted around 1660/1661 and Jan Vermeer probably painted it with the help of a camera obscura from a higher floor of a house.
The circumstance of the elevated point of view becomes especially clear in the top view of the figures at the lower left edge of the picture. The painting shows a view of the city with the Schie River in the foreground. Here, as in his other paintings, Jan Vermeer arranged the architectural elements parallel to the edge of the picture, in contrast to other painters who wanted to make the inner life of a city accessible with streets leading into the depths.
In addition, Vermeer laid out a triangular shoreline in the composition in the foreground. This element, introduced by Pieter Brueghel, was often used, for example in the painting View of Zierikzee by Esaias van de Velde. Vermeer used mainly brown and ocher tones for the coloring of his Delft View. On the buildings in the foreground, which are in shadow, and on the hulls of the ships, he placed dabs of color to show the joint structure and incrustations.
The light breaking through the clouds mainly illuminates buildings in the background and the tower of the Nieuwe Kerk. With the brightly lit church tower, Jan Vermeer probably wanted to make a political statement. The Nieuwe Kerk housed the tomb of William I of Orange, who died in an assassination attempt in Delft in 1584 and was considered a hero of the resistance against Spain.
Moralizing images
At the bawd from 1656 is the earliest picture of Jan Vermeer, which can be attributed to genre painting. It is probable that Vermeer was inspired by the painting of the same name by the painter Dirck van Baburen, which was in the possession of his mother-in-law Maria Thins. This painting continues to appear in some of Vermeer's works as an allusion to the subject treated.
At the bawd's house (1656)
In the case of the bawd, it can be assigned to the category of the "Bordeeltje", the brothel painting, which is a subcategory of the genre painting. The picture shows four people, two women and two men.
There is a lack of clarity for a concrete designation of the figures, whether it is actually a scene in a brothel or a domestic scene. In the first case, the woman on the right edge of the picture would be a prostitute, and the man standing behind her would be a john.
The woman dressed in black would be the matchmaker who organized the business. However, if it is a domestic scene, the image would represent the emergence of an extramarital relationship. In this case, the matchmaker would probably be a woman from the neighborhood who would have organized this relationship.
The man with the water glass on the left edge of the painting could be Vermeer himself. It would be his only self-portrait.
Of the people depicted, only the upper bodies are visible, as there is a table in the foreground. This composition of the painting creates distance between the viewer and the figures. Since genre paintings were also meant to convey values, they often contained admonitions.
The wine motif, represented in the carafe and the wine glass in the hand of the prostitute, whose cheeks are reddened by the consumption of alcohol, was intended to convey that man should remain in his right mind despite the sensual seductions.
The central aspect of the painting, the venality of love, is only indirectly depicted by the prostitute opening her hand to accept a coin from the suitor. In this way, Vermeer is relatively restrained compared to other artists who used more drastic allusions - such as Frans van Mieris, who depicted copulating dogs in the background of the painting The Soldier and the Girl.
The painting Sleeping Girl, painted around 1657, is another of Vermeer's works with a moralizing message. The young woman depicted is seated at a table covered with an oriental rug.
This forms a triangle at the front end of the table and was arranged by Vermeer along with a carafe of wine and a plate of fruit. The woman is asleep, supporting her head with her arm, symbolically emphasizing idleness.
Sleeping girl (about 1657)
The clothing suggests that this is not a maid, but a wife managing the household. Jan Vermeer had initially used several narrative elements in the painting to have the woman interact within the painting.
For example, an X-ray examination showed that there was a dog in the doorway and a man in the left background of the painting, which were later painted over.
This made the painting more open to interpretation in terms of composition. The motif of wine consumption is taken up again in this painting by the carafe and also determined the title of the painting as A Drunken Sleeping Girl at a Table at the Sale on May 16, 1696:
As a result of the sleep caused by wine consumption, the woman neglects her household duties.
Depictions of Women
Most depictions of women in Vermeer's paintings suggest a story, with attributes such as musical instruments or household objects influencing the idea of the plot. Only three paintings differ from this to a greater degree and can be described as portraits.
Letter reader at open window (about 1657) with Cupido painted over
The painting Letter Reader at the Open Window, painted around 1657 and thus in Vermeer's early phase, shows a woman with a letter, which mainly determines the action of the painting. Vermeer takes up the element of the letter in other paintings as well. In this painting, the artist shows a woman positioned in the center of the picture with a letter in her hand in front of an open window.
In the foreground is a table, in front of which is a curtain on the right edge of the picture. The woman is shown in profile, but the viewer can see the hint of her face as a reflection in the window. That the letter is probably a love letter is clear from details such as the suggestion of the fall of man through the fruit bowl filled with peaches and apples.
The curtain that can be seen in the foreground may reinforce this statement if it is pushed aside as a sign of revelation. However, it may also be that it is simply one of the elements of the composition used several times by Vermeer. To the right of the letter reader, an X-ray in 1979 revealed a nude Cupid, painted over with several layers.
He is about the same size as the girl. Laboratory tests have shown that the overpainting is undoubtedly not by Vermeer. In the course of a restoration, these overpaintings were also removed. The painting has been on public view again in its original state, i.e. with Cupid, since September 2021.
Letter reader at open window after restoration 2021
In most of Jan Vermeer's depictions of women, moral statements play a significant role. This theme is also taken up in the paintings with women playing music. An example of this is the work Standing Virginal Player, painted between 1673 and 1675.
The very name of the instrument virginal is an allusion to the virginity of the girl depicted. It is to be understood especially against the background that in the 17th century in the Netherlands strict care was taken that the woman did not have sexual intercourse until marriage. The painting with the cupid depicted in the background of the picture contrasts with this moral understanding.
The most popular painting by Jan Vermeer is the portrait The Girl with the Pearl Earrings, painted around 1665. This fame is mainly due to its modern reception and the fact that this work was the subject of a successful Vermeer exhibition at the Mauritshuis in The Hague in 1995 and 1996.
The girl with the pearl earring (about 1665)
The depicted girl is shown at close range and without narrative attributes, which clearly sets this portrait apart from Vermeer's other works. It is not known who the person depicted is. It could be a model, but perhaps the painting was a commissioned work.
The background of the painting is neutral and very dark, but not black due to its multicolored nature. The dark background enhances the brightness of the girl, especially that of her skin. It tilts its head, which gives the appearance of lost in thought to the viewer. The girl interacts with the viewer by looking directly at him and keeping her mouth slightly open, which in Dutch painting is often the suggestion of addressing the viewer of the painting.
The girl's clothing was painted by Vermeer with approximately pure colors, the number of colors present in the painting is limited. The girl's jacket is brownish yellow, contrasting with the blue turban and white collar. The turban with the yellow falling cloth is a sign of the interest in the Oriental culture present at that time in the aftermath of the Turkish wars.
Therefore, in the 17th century turbans were a popular and widespread accessory in Europe. Besides that, the pearl on the girl's ear, which stands out from the shadow zone of the neck, is particularly striking.
Representation of the sciences
In the painting The Astronomer from 1668, as well as the parallel painting The Geographer, painted in 1668 and 1669, Jan Vermeer stages disciplines of science and their representatives. There are also allusions in some other paintings such as The Soldier and the Laughing Girl, such as equipment or maps depicted in the background of the painting.
The Astronomer (1668)
Cartography was a young scientific discipline and was still developing, especially with regard to the various methods of map projections, through the design of which a flat image of the round earth could be shown.
In the 17th century, maps were a luxury item; in Vermeer's paintings, they stand not only as a sign of wealth, but also of education. Moreover, they point to the position of the Netherlands as a maritime and commercial power, active in long-distance trade worldwide and a major colonial power with its profitable Dutch colonies.
In its Golden Age, the Republic of the United Netherlands saw itself as a world power militarily, economically, and scientifically. It was still able to maintain its supremacy in overseas trade after the second of the Anglo-Dutch Wars in the Peace of Breda in 1667, but had withdrawn from North America and the former Nieuw Amsterdam was now called New York.
After the Rampjaar of Holland in 1672, the Seven Provinces were again given a governor, William III (Orange), who then also became King of England, Scotland and Ireland in personal union after the British Glorious Revolution of 1688 in the United Kingdom.
The painting The Geographer shows in the center of the picture the scientist standing in a room next to the window as the central motif. He wears a long robe and his long hair behind his ears open. In front of him lies an unrolled map spread out, which shines brightly in the incident light.
A tapestry covering the tabletop has been pushed aside and hangs folding in the foreground over the table down to the floor, so that the supporting structure underneath remains hidden. Next to it, a low chest can be seen; on the floor behind it lie rolled sheets of maps.
On the wall in the background is a high cabinet, on it a globe. In his right hand, the geographer is holding a pair of compasses with which distances on a map can be traced; with his left hand, he is leaning on a piece of squared timber that serves to smooth out and fix the map sheet.
The Geographer, 1669, Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main
He is depicted at a moment when he raises his head and his gaze goes outside into the distance. His face lights up in the light, revealing his still youthful features in half profile. Props, clothing and appearance make the geographer in this scene appear as a mysterious character.
With these depictions of a geographer and an astronomer, Jan Vermeer picked up on 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 a contravention of God's plan of salvation and was considered presumptuous.
Nevertheless, since the end of the 15th century, the sciences dealing with the earth and the stars developed on a large scale. Since the non-European discoveries in America, Asia and Africa, merchants, seafarers and noblemen needed more and more geographical knowledge, which was prepared in books, maps and globes.
Allegories
In addition to his naturalistic paintings, which mostly dealt with themes from everyday life, Jan Vermeer also painted two allegories in which he personified abstract themes and personally commented on them through symbols and references.
These two paintings are titled Allegory of Faith, painted between 1671 and 1674, and The Art of Painting (Allegory of Painting). In doing so, Vermeer relied on Cesare Ripa's treatise on iconography.
The Allegory of Painting measures 130 cm × 110 cm, making it one of Vermeer's largest paintings. The painting has been considered by many art historians as Vermeer's pictorial legacy.
The art of painting (about 1665/1666 or 1673)
Thus, Hans Sedlmayr used the title The Glory of Painting. This titling is due to the name of the painting at the debt settlement after Vermeer's death, when it was called "A piece of painting, [...] on which the art of painting is depicted".
The painting shows a studio that may have been inspired by Vermeer's own, since an oak table like the one depicted appeared in his inventory. On this table, in addition to a book, symbol of wisdom and contemplation, there is also a notebook, which is to be understood as a symbol of artistic inspiration.
As the central person in this painting, the painter sits in the middle of the picture in front of an almost empty canvas. He turns his back to the viewer so that he maintains his anonymity. In the background of the picture is a young woman who is the painter's model.
She is wearing a blue silk robe and a yellow skirt. In her left hand she holds a book, in her right a trumpet. On her head she wears a wreath of laurel leaves, all representing eternal glory.
Since the Renaissance, the blank canvas has been considered a symbol of the artistic idea, which then takes shape in the painting process. The fact that the painter works on a painting while a mask lies on the table was interpreted as the result of the competition of the arts, the "paragone".
Detail of image with muse Klio
Thus painting would have triumphed over sculpture. According to the current state of research, it is assumed that the young woman is not simply a model - or Fama - but represents the muse Klio. This is the muse of historiography and heroic poetry in Greek mythology.
Thus, the subject of the painting is not painting, but history. This is also symbolized by the map by Nicolaes Visscher on the wall in the background, which shows the seventeen provinces before the armistice with Spain in 1609.
The 1636 map is lined with city views on both edges, and Klio stands in front of The Hague with a view of the royal court. This can be interpreted as Vermeer's homage to William III of Orange. The painting may have been created in the early days of the Franco-Dutch War, which lasted from 1672 to 1678, at a time of internal unrest in the Netherlands when hope rested on the Orangemen.
In addition, a positive attitude towards the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation is evident, for example, in the chandelier with the Habsburg double-headed eagle. The painting is thus not a praise of painting, but rather a statement by Vermeer on the current political situation in the Netherlands.
Drawings
There are no drawings that can be attributed to Jan Vermeer without doubt. Their absence has led many authors to assume that Vermeer did not need study drawings for his work. Contradicting this is the controversial drawing Maid with Foot Warmer, which proponents attribute to Vermeer and date to 1655.
It measures 25.5 cm × 16.5 cm, is executed in chalk on blue paper, and is now in the Prints and Drawings Collection at the Schlossmuseum Weimar. Proponents attribute the drawing's attribution to Vermeer primarily to stylistic similarities and the similarity of the monogram on the foot warmer to the signatures on the paintings Letter Reader at the Open Window and View of Delft.
Doubters cite, for example, the blue drawing paper as justification for their position, assuming that this paper was produced only in later centuries. This is contradicted by an account of Karel van Mander, who lived before Vermeer and was the author of the Schilderboek. Van Mander led a pupil of the portraitist Michiel Miereveld from Delft:
"He is zealous in examining the most mature beauty of the art of painting, practices in coloring various self-invented manners, draws in between also on blue paper ..." This means that blue drawing paper existed in the Delft area long before Jan Vermeer.
Painting materials
The choice of painter's colors used was an important aspect of Vermeer's elaborate painting technique. He is best known for his generous use of expensive natural ultramarine ("Maid with Milk Jug" and "Letter Reader in Blue"). He was also characterized by the pigments lead tin yellow ("Letter Reader in Yellow"), madder varnish ("Christ with Mary and Martha"), and vermilion.
For his city views and backgrounds, Vermeer also used earth colors, leg black, and the cheaper blue pigment azurite.
Artistic innovation
Jan Vermeer was a pioneer of new design principles in the painting of his time. He used a balanced division of surfaces, with which he depicted even complex facts and structures simply and with few elements.
Geometry played an important role in the composition. Vermeer dealt with light in his paintings in such a way that the impression of open-air painting was almost achieved. Furthermore, he did not use gray tones to represent shadows.
The Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh wrote to the French painter Émile Bernard:
"It is true that in the few paintings he made one can find the whole scale of color; but to unite the lemon yellow, the pale blue and light gray is as characteristic in him as in Velázquez the harmonization of black, white, gray and pink."
It is repeatedly claimed that Jan Vermeer used a camera obscura when painting his pictures. Norbert Schneider, for example, writes:
"We know today that Vermeer made use of the camera obscura in most of his paintings, in a way that does not conceal the conditions of this medium, but makes them downright visible, as can be seen in the blurring of the edges and the dots of light, the famous 'pointillé.' In this way, the images acquire an 'abstract' quality with him, since they do not pretend to reproduce reality as it is, but as one sees it. One can say that the 'camera obscura becomes a source of style'."
Not all experts share this opinion. A large number of studies have examined the subject. But even among those scholars who are certain that Vermeer did indeed work with a camera obscura, there are still great debates about the extent to which he did so.
The discussions began when the U.S. lithographer, Joseph Pennell first pointed out photographic perspectives in the Vermeer painting The Soldier and the Laughing Girl in 1891. In 1934, Paul Claudel again brought the photographic qualities of Vermeer's art to the attention of art history.
Charles Seymour and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., referring to the halo light effects that could be seen, claimed that Vermeer used a camera obscura for his View of Delft, The Painting, The Girl in the Red Hat, and The Lace-Maker. Jørgen Wadum, on the other hand, places more emphasis on Vermeer's development and his qualities as a painter of perspective: Thirteen paintings have a small hole pierced into the linen with a needle.
Johannes Vermeer's Significance
Attention and fame
Jan Vermeer and his work remained unknown to most during his lifetime, as his paintings received little attention beyond a small circle of connoisseurs and enthusiasts. This was due to his small body of work and the fact that paintings by him were rarely traded at auction. Although the quality of Vermeer's works was noticed, his oeuvre as a whole received little attention.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Jan Vermeer was not completely forgotten, but was rarely mentioned in literature. Yet his work was usually praised. With the beginning of the 19th century, interest in Jan Vermeer grew again, even though hardly any biographical information about him was known.
Vermeer's paintings were especially praised in auction catalogs and fetched high prices. In addition, Vermeer's work was taken up by artists, such as Wybrand Hendriks, who copied the View of Delft and painted genre scenes in Vermeer's style. In 1821, Christian Josi published an essay entitled 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 praised his work.
After Vermeer's painting View of Delft had been particularly praised in the literature, King William I of the Netherlands decided to purchase this work through the Mauritshuis. It was in the Royal Gallery there that the work of Jan Vermeer came to the attention of the British art collector John Smith.
Smith mentioned Vermeer in his catalog of paintings from France, Flanders and the Netherlands, which comprised eight volumes. Smith explained Vermeer's low profile by his small body of work. In view of this, John Smith wondered about Vermeer's artistry, which is why he considered him an imitator and disciple of other painters.
From the middle of the 19th century Vermeer's painting was more widely received. The French publicist and politician William Thoré-Bürger became acquainted with 17th-century Dutch painting, including works by Vermeer, during his travels through Holland and Belgium.
Thoré-Bürger recognized that realism in the depiction of everyday life corresponded to the ideas of the aesthetics of his time. He helped Vermeer achieve a breakthrough with three very positive journal essays. In these essays, William Thoré-Bürger catalogued Vermeer's works and characterized his painting.
Thoré-Bürger's work marked the first time that Jan Vermeer entered art literature on a larger scale. By observing light, the Impressionists came to similar conclusions as Vermeer, whose paintings depicted light conditions in their natural way. Thus Jan Vermeer and his work received ever greater appreciation.
At the beginning of the 20th century, paintings by Vermeer, such as Girl in a Red Hat, were rediscovered in private collections. These works had been attributed to other artists such as Gabriel Metsu and Pieter de Hooch.
However, Thoré-Bürger and other art critics and art historians also incorrectly attributed works to Jan Vermeer, such as those by Jacobus Vrel and Jan Vermeer van Haarlem.
Thus, Vermeer research in the 20th century was mainly concerned with the exact determination of the complete works. Today, Jan Vermeer is one of the most popular Dutch painters. In 1995/96, for example, 460,000 visitors attended the Johannes Vermeer exhibition in The Hague, which featured 22 of his works, in just 14 weeks. Unusually, all tickets were sold in advance. The same exhibition in Washington, D.C., was visited by 327,551 visitors.
Art market development
Jan Vermeer was supported by patrons who acquired much of his work. A significant collection of his works was owned by the print shop owner Jacob Dissius and his wife Magdalena van Ruijven, who owned 19 paintings by Vermeer according to an inventory list drawn up in 1682.
Some of the paintings came from the estate of their father Pieter Claesz. van Ruijven. Others, however, may have been acquired by Magdalena van Ruijven, Jacob Dissius, or his father, Abraham Jacobsz Dissius, when 26 works by Vermeer from his estate were sold on May 15, 1677, in the hall of the Guild of St. Luke. Thus, both families probably acquired significant pieces from Vermeer's complete works.
Commercially, Vermeer's works had a prominent position. For example, on May 16, 1696, at an auction by Gerard Houet, 134 pictures were sold, of which 21 pieces were said to be paintings by Vermeer. The prices asked for these paintings ranged from 17 to 200 guilders.
That his paintings fetched such high prices is a sign that Vermeer was a sought-after artist. In the same auction, for example, a portrait of a head by Rembrandt sold for just over seven guilders and a beheading of John the Baptist attributed to Carel Fabritius sold for 20 guilders, underscoring Vermeer's status.
As Vermeer's fame and popularity increased in the early 19th century, so did his prices. For example, The Geographer was purchased in 1798 for seven louis and sold again in 1803 for 36. A year later, at the king's request, the state acquired The View of Delft for the then extremely high sum of 2900 guilders and donated it to the Mauritshuis.
By the end of the 19th century, more and more of Vermeer's works were being traded at increasingly high prices. American millionaires such as John Pierpont Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, Henry Marquand and Isabella Stewart Gardner bought Vermeers and were wooed by museums to lend them to them and also to transfer them.
An example of the price trend is Allegory of Faith. In 1899, Abraham Bredius purchased this painting for about 700 guilders and subsequently loaned it to the Mauritshuis and the Boymans van Beuningen Museum. Eventually, Bredius sold the painting for $300,000 to American Michael Friedsam, who bequeathed it to the Metropolitan Museum.
In 1921, Henri W. A. Deterding acquired the painting Street in Delft for 625,000 guilders from the Collectie Six, named after the art collector Jan Six, and donated it to the Dutch state. At Deterding's behest, the painting is on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The price trend and high demand made Vermeer attractive to forgers.
In 1940, Adolf Hitler purchased Die Malkunst (Allegory of Painting) from Austrians Eugen and Jaromir Czernin for 1,650,000 Reichsmarks. The taxes of about 500,000 Reichsmark were also paid by Hitler. In the run-up to the sale, there had already been several offers to buy the painting, including one for six million dollars from U.S. Secretary of State Andrew W. Mellon, but the export license was not granted.
The painting was intended for the planned art museum in Linz and was initially located in Munich after Hitler's acquisition. Towards the end of the Second World War, it was hidden in the Altaussee salt mine and recovered by members of the U.S. Army after the end of the war. They gave Die Malkunst to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
In 2004, the painting Young Woman at the Virginal was sold at auction by Steve Wynn for 30 million dollars. It was the first time since 1921 that a work by Vermeer was offered at auction.
Forgeries
Since the authorship of Vermeer today is considered certain only for 37 pictures, there were always rumors about the existence of other pictures, whose place of storage was not known until now. This circumstance led to the fact that again and again forgers produced allegedly so far undiscovered pictures of Vermeer and brought on the art market.
The demand for Vermeer's works was so great that it could not be met by his small body of work. The Dutchman Han van Meegeren produced such perfect forgeries that even the Vermeer expert Abraham Bredius issued expert opinions on the authenticity of these paintings.
The latter confirmed, among other things, the authenticity of van Meegeren's Emmaus Supper, which the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam acquired in 1938. In addition, the German Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring also bought a forgery by Han van Meegeren, as did the Dutch state.
The latter bought the painting Foot Washing in 1943, which is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In addition to Bredius, Wilhelm von Bode and the director of the Mauritshuis, Wilhelm Martin, also issued expert opinions for fake Vermeers. Today, these paintings belong to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
In the meantime, examination methods can clearly determine whether works attributed to Jan Vermeer could have been painted at all during his lifetime. Forgeries with lead pigments made from today's lead or lead compounds have a different isotopic composition and can be detected with the help of the lead-210 method. Lead-210 is a lead isotope of the uranium-238 decay series arising from radium-226, which continues to decay with a half-life of 22 years.
This short half-life can be used to detect recent counterfeits. In addition, the lead used in the Netherlands during Vermeer's lifetime was obtained from deposits in the low mountain ranges of Europe. Since the 19th century, however, lead ores have been imported from America and Australia, so that modern lead white differs from the older lead white in the content of trace elements and in the isotopic composition of the lead.
The latter was also characterized by high silver and antimony contents, while modern white lead no longer contains these elements, as they are separated from the lead during smelting.
Reception
Painting
Jan Vermeer was received as a painter by Salvador Dalí. As a child, Dalí was fascinated by a reproduction of Vermeer's The Lace-Maker, which was in his father's study. In 1934, he painted several paintings related to works by Jan Vermeer, such as The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table, which shows Vermeer as a dark, kneeling figure spreading one leg wide so that it forms a tabletop.
On this table are a bottle and a small glass. In the painting Paysage avec elements enigmatiques from the same year, Jan Vermeer is depicted sitting in front of the easel. In 1936 he created Apparition de la ville de Delft, which shows a part of the view of Delft in the background. Salvador Dalí asked the Louvre to allow him to make a copy of Lace Maker and was granted permission.
Thus, in 1955, he created the copy and the painting Peintre paranoïaque-critique de la Dentellière de Vermeer (German: Paranoisch-kritisches Gemälde der Spitzenklöpplerin von Vermeer), in which he explodes the painting in the form of rhinoceros horns. This shape was created in Dalí's childhood because he had to think of it when looking at the reproduction of the painting.
Salvador Dalí admired Vermeer and compared the lace lace maker to the Sistine Chapel. To this he literally said: "Michelangelo with the Last Judgment is no more magnificent than Vermeer van Delft with his Lace-Maker in the Louvre, a hand span square in size. Considering the sculptural dimensions, Vermeer's Lace Lappet can be said to be magnificent compared to the Sistine Chapel."
Among contemporary artists, it is Gerhard Richter whose admiration for Vermeer is repeatedly mentioned and expressed in his "out of focus" photo adaptations.
Johannes Vermeer in Literature
The reception of the painting View of Delft by the French writer Marcel Proust enjoys great fame. He traveled to the Netherlands in October 1902 and saw Vermeer's View of Delft, among other paintings, which he liked best.
When a collection of works by Dutch masters was shown at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris in the spring of 1921, Proust visited the exhibition, even though he was ill with asthma and had withdrawn, because Vermeer's works View of Delft, Maid with Milk Jug, and The Girl with the Pearl Earring were also on display.
On the stairs to the exhibition, he suffered a fainting spell, which he attributed to a potato dish he had eaten earlier. Marcel Proust took up the Delft view as well as the fit of weakness in his monumental work A la recherche du temps perdu (written between 1913 and 1927, Engl.: In Search of Lost Time), namely in the fifth part, La Prisonnière (1923, The Prisoner) with his novel character Bergotte. The latter becomes aware of a "yellow piece of wall" in the view of Delft through a review.
This piece of wall still puzzles us today, as it is not to be found in the painting. The location is indicated in the original French as Le petit pan de mur jaune avec un auvent and du tout petit pan de mur jaune (German roughly: "a small area of yellow masonry with a canopy").
Since this passage is not present in the painting, it is now assumed that Proust either invented this masonry passage for his novel or, possibly due to his illness, fell victim to a memory error while writing this passage.
More recently, Jan Vermeer gained greater popularity through the 1999 novel The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, which was made into a film by Peter Webber in 2003.
It addresses the question of who the woman in the painting The Girl with the Pearl Earring is, and develops a fictional story around the maid Griet who is the model for the painting. Also fictional is the story Susan Vreeland tells in the book The Girl in Hyacinth Blue.
The painting she invented, Vermeer's Girl with a Sewing Basket, showing his daughter, is traced back through history, linking the description of its various owners. Vermeer himself is treated directly only at the end of the book; otherwise, his painting is the only unifying element of the various episodes.
With The Pentomino Oracle, a children's book also takes up Jan Vermeer. Author Blue Balliett's book refers primarily to the paintings The Geographer and The Letter Writer in Yellow.
The latter is stolen to draw attention to the fact that some paintings were wrongly attributed to Vermeer. Furthermore, in 2005 Luigi Guarnieri wrote the novel The Double Life of Vermeer, which tells the story of the art forger Han van Meegeren, who became famous for forging alleged Vermeer paintings.
Johannes Vermeer in Film
Directed by Jean Oser, the 1952 Oscar-winning short film Light in the Window explores the life and work of Vermeer.
Peter Greenaway attempted to recreate the works of Jan Vermeer in real life in his 1985 film One Z and Two Zeros. In Jon Jost's 1990 film All the Vermeers in New York, Jan Vermeer is mentioned in passing when a French actress meets with a broker in front of the Vermeer paintings at the Metropolitan Museum.
In 2003, the book The Girl with the Pearl Earring was made into a film by British film director Peter Webber. The leading role of the maid was played by Scarlett Johansson, and Vermeer was portrayed by Colin Firth. The Girl with the Pearl Earring won several awards and was nominated for three Oscars.
In addition to his pictorial reception, Salvador Dalí also took up Jan Vermeer on film. In 1954, he and Robert Descharnes began shooting a film called L'Histoire prodigieuse de la Dentelliere et du Rhinoceros, also L'aventure prodigieuse de la Dentelliere et du Rhinoceros. However, this film, thematically related to the lace maker and the rhinoceros, was not completed.
The image The Lace-Maker also appears briefly as an illustration in a book in the 1929 surrealist film An Andalusian Dog, in which Dali was also involved.
In 2013, a documentary about the inventor Tim Jenison, Tim's Vermeer, was released. He followed a theory that Vermeer used optical instruments while painting. So he recreated a room modeled after the painting The Music Lesson and painted what he saw through his instruments.
He had no training in painting. After four months he finished his work. He himself sees the theory confirmed, while art historians doubt that Vermeer actually used optical instruments in this way.
In 2015, the documentary Vermeer - The Revenge was made, directed by Jean-Pierre Cottet and Guillaume Cottet. It is a life story based on Vermeer's paintings (France 2015, 95 min.).