Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer (Dutch pronunciation: [joˈɦɑnəs jɑn vərˈmɪːr];1632 – December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He seems never to have been particularly wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings.[3]
Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, using bright colours and sometimes expensive pigments, with a preference for cornflower blue and yellow. He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.[4]
Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes. As Koning points out: "Almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women".[5]
Recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death; he was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbraken's major source book on 17th century Dutch painting (Grand Theatre of Dutch Painters and Women Artists), and was thus omitted from subsequent surveys of Dutch art for nearly two centuries.[6][7] In the 19th century Vermeer was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who published an essay attributing sixty-six pictures to him, although only thirty-four paintings are universally attributed to him today.[2] Since that time Vermeer's reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age.
Relatively little is known about Vermeer's life. He was baptized in Delft on 31 October 1632 as Joannis, and buried in the same city under the name Jan on 15 December 1675. He seems to have been exclusively devoted to his art, living out his life in the city of Delft. The only sources of information are some registers, a few official documents and comments by other artists; it was for this reason that Thoré Bürger named him "The Sphinx of Delft".[8]
On 31 October 1632, Johannes was baptized in the Reformed Church.[9][10] His father, Reijnier Janszoon, was a middle-class worker of silk or caffa (a mixture of silk and cotton or wool).[Note 1] As an apprentice in Amsterdam, Reijnier lived on fashionable Sint Antoniesbreestraat, then a street with many resident painters. In 1615 he married Digna Baltus. The couple moved to Delft and had a daughter, Gertruy, who was baptized in 1620.[Note 2] In 1625 Reijnier was involved in a fight with a soldier named Willem van Bylandt, who died from his wounds five months later.[11] Around this time Reijnier began dealing in paintings. In 1631 he leased an inn called "The Flying Fox". In 1641 he bought a larger inn on the market square, named after the Flemish town "Mechelen". The acquisition of the inn constituted a considerable financial burden.[Huerta 1] When Vermeer's father died in October 1652, Vermeer assumed operation of the family's art business.
View of Delft (1660–61) "
He took a turbulent reality, and made it look like Heaven on earth."
[12]
In April 1653 Johannes Reijniersz Vermeer married a Catholic girl, Catharina Bolenes (Bolnes). The blessing took place in a nearby and quiet village Schipluiden.[Note 3] For the groom it was a good match. His mother-in-law, Maria Thins, was significantly wealthier than he, and it was probably she who insisted Vermeer convert to Catholicism before the marriage on 5 April.[Note 4] Some scholars doubt that Vermeer became Catholic, but one of his paintings, Allegory of Catholic Faith,[13] made between 1670 and 1672, placed less emphasis on the artists’ usual naturalistic concerns, and more on religious symbolic applications, including the sacrament of the Eucharist, which was scorned by the Protestant order at the time. Walter Liedtke in Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art suggests it was made for a learned and devout Catholic patron, perhaps for his schuilkerk, or "hidden church."[Liedtke 1] So, whether it represents Vermeer’s own beliefs or only those of his patron is left to speculation. At some point the couple moved in with Catharina's mother, who lived in a rather spacious house at Oude Langendijk, almost next to a hidden Jesuit church.[Note 5] Here Vermeer lived for the rest of his life, producing paintings in the front room on the second floor. His wife gave birth to 14 children, four of whom were buried before being baptized, but were registered as "child of Johan Vermeer".[Note 6] From wills written by relatives, the names of ten of Vermeer's children are known: Maria, Elisabeth, Cornelia, Aleydis, Beatrix, Johannes, Gertruyd, Franciscus, Catharina, and Ignatius.[Montias 1] Several of these names carry a religious connotation, and it is likely that the youngest, Ignatius, was named after the founder of the Jesuit order.[Note 7]
It is unclear where and with whom Vermeer apprenticed as a painter. Speculation that Carel Fabritius may have been his teacher is based upon a controversial interpretation of a text written in 1668 by the printer Arnold Bon. Art historians have found no hard evidence to support this.[Montias 2] The local authority, Leonaert Bramer, acted as a friend but their style of painting is rather different.[14] Liedtke suggests Vermeer taught himself, using information from one of his father's connections.[Liedtke 2] Some scholars think Vermeer was trained under the Catholic painter Abraham Bloemaert. Vermeer's style is similar to that of some of the Utrecht Carravagists, whose works are depicted as paintings-within-paintings in the backgrounds of several of his compositions.[Note 8] In Delft, Vermeer probably competed with Pieter de Hooch and Nicolaes Maes, who produced genre works in a similar style.
On 29 December 1653, Vermeer became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke, a trade association for painters. The guild's records make clear that Vermeer did not pay the usual admission fee. It was a year of plague, war and economic crisis; Vermeer was not alone in experiencing difficult financial circumstances. In 1654 the city suffered the terrible explosion known as the Delft Thunderclap, which destroyed a large section of the city.[15] In 1657 he might have found a patron in the local art collector Pieter van Ruijven, who lent him some money. In 1662 Vermeer was elected head of the guild and was reelected in 1663, 1670, and 1671, evidence that he (like Bramer) was considered an established craftsman among his peers. Vermeer worked slowly, probably producing three paintings a year, and on order. When Balthasar de Monconys visited him in 1663 to see some of his work, the diplomat and the two French clergymen who accompanied him were sent to Hendrick van Buyten, a baker, who had a couple of his paintings as collateral.
In 1671 Gerrit van Uylenburgh organised the auction of Gerrit Reynst's collection and offered thirteen paintings and some sculptures to Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. Frederick accused them of being counterfeits and had sent twelve back on the advice of Hendrick Fromantiou.[16] Van Uylenburg then organized a counter-assessment, asking a total of 35 painters to pronounce on their authenticity, including Jan Lievens, Melchior de Hondecoeter, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout and Johannes Vermeer.
In 1672 a severe economic downturn (the "Year of Disaster") struck the Netherlands, after Louis XIV and a French army invaded the Dutch Republic from the south (known as the Franco-Dutch War). During the Third Anglo-Dutch War an English fleet and two allied German bishops attacked the country from the east causing more destruction. Many people panicked; courts, theaters, shops and schools were closed. Five years passed before circumstances improved. In the summer of 1675 Vermeer borrowed money in Amsterdam, using his mother-in-law as a surety.
In December 1675 Vermeer fell into a frenzy and, within a day and a half, died. He was buried in the Protestant Old Church on 15 December 1675. Catharina Bolnes attributed her husband's death to the stress of financial pressures. The collapse of the art market damaged Vermeer's business as both a painter and an art dealer. She, having to raise 11 children, asked the High Court to relieve her of debts owed to Vermeer's creditors.[Montias 3] The Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who worked for the city council as a surveyor, was appointed trustee. The house, with eight rooms on the first floor, was filled with paintings, drawings, clothes, chairs, and beds. In his atelier there were two chairs, two painter's easels, three palettes, ten canvases, a desk, an oak pull table, a small wooden cupboard with drawers and "rummage not worthy being itemized".[Montias 4] Nineteen of Vermeer's paintings were bequeathed to Catharina and her mother. The widow sold two more paintings to Hendrick van Buyten in order to pay off a substantial debt for delivered bread.
Vermeer had been a respected artist in Delft, but almost unknown outside his home town. The fact that a local patron, Pieter van Ruijven, purchased much of his output reduced the possibility of his fame spreading.[Note 9] Several factors contributed to his limited oeuvre. Vermeer never had any pupils and therefore there was no school of Vermeer. His family obligations with so many children may have taken up much of his time as would acting as both an art-dealer and inn-keeper in running the family businesses. His time spent serving as head of the guild and his extraordinary precision as a painter may have also limited his output.
The Music Lesson or
A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman, c. 1662-65; Vermeer
Like most painters of his time, Vermeer probably first executed his paintings tonally, using either only shades of gray ("grisaille"), or a limited palette of browns and grays ("dead coloring"), over which more saturated colors (reds, yellows and blues) were applied in the form of glazes. Vermeer produced transparent colours by applying paint to the canvas in loosely granular layers, a technique called pointillé (not to be confused with pointillism). No drawings have been positively attributed to Vermeer, and his paintings offer few clues to preparatory methods. David Hockney, among other historians and advocates of the Hockney–Falco thesis, has speculated that Vermeer used a camera obscura to achieve precise positioning in his compositions, and this view seems to be supported by certain light and perspective effects. The often-discussed sparkling pearly highlights in Vermeer's paintings have been linked to this possible use of a camera obscura, the primitive lens of which would produce halation. Exaggerated perspective can be seen in Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (London, Royal Collection). Vermeer's interest in optics is also attested in this work by the accurately observed mirror reflection above the lady at the virginals.
However, the extent of Vermeer's dependence upon the camera obscura is disputed by historians. There is no historical evidence. The detailed inventory of the artist's belongings drawn up after his death does not include a camera obscura or any similar device. Scientific evidence is limited to inference. Philip Steadman has found six Vermeer paintings that are precisely the right size if they were inside a camera obscura where the back wall of his studio was where the images were projected.[17]
There is no other seventeenth-century artist who early in his career employed, in the most lavish way, the exorbitantly expensive pigment lapis lazuli, or natural ultramarine. Vermeer not only used this in elements that are naturally of this colour; the earth colours umber and ochre should be understood as warm light within a painting's strongly-lit interior, which reflects its multiple colours onto the wall. In this way, he created a world more perfect than any he had witnessed.[Liedtke 3] This working method most probably was inspired by Vermeer’s understanding of Leonardo’s observations that the surface of every object partakes of the colour of the adjacent object.[18] This means that no object is ever seen entirely in its natural colour.
A comparable but even more remarkable, yet effectual, use of natural ultramarine is in The Girl with a Wineglass. The shadows of the red satin dress are underpainted in natural ultramarine, and, owing to this underlying blue paint layer, the red lake and vermilion mixture applied over it acquires a slightly purple, cool and crisp appearance that is most powerful.
Even after Vermeer’s supposed financial breakdown following the so-called rampjaar (year of disaster) in 1672, he continued to employ natural ultramarine generously, such as in Lady Seated at a Virginal. This could suggest that Vermeer was supplied with materials by a collector, and would coincide with John Michael Montias’ theory of Pieter van Ruijven being Vermeer’s patron.
His works are largely genre pieces and portraits, with the exception of two cityscapes and two allegories. His subjects offer a cross-section of seventeenth-century Dutch society, ranging from the portrayal of a simple milkmaid at work, to the luxury and splendour of rich notables and merchantmen in their roomy houses. Besides these subjects, religious, poetical, musical, and scientific comments can also be found in his work.
Only three paintings are dated: The Procuress (1656, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie), The Astronomer (1668, Paris, Louvre), and The Geographer (1669, Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut).
Vermeer's mother-in-law, Maria Thins, owned Dirck van Baburen's 1622 oil-on-canvas Procuress (or a copy of it), which appears in the background of two of Vermeer's paintings. The same subject was also painted by Vermeer. After creating his own The Procuress, almost all of Vermeer's paintings are of contemporary subjects in a smaller format, with a cooler palette dominated by blues, yellows and grays. Practically all of his surviving works belong to this period; usually domestic interiors with one or two figures lit by a window on the left. They are characterized by a serene sense of compositional balance and spatial order, unified by a pearly light. Mundane domestic or recreational activities become thereby imbued with a poetic timelessness (e.g. Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie). Vermeer's two townscapes, View of Delft (The Hague, Mauritshuis) and A street in Delft (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), have also been attributed to this period.
A few of his paintings show a certain hardening of manner and are generally thought to represent his late works. From this period come The Allegory of Faith (c 1670, New York, Metropolitan Museum) and The Love Letter (c 1670, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum).
- Upon the rediscovery of Vermeer's work in the 19th century, several prominent Dutch artists, including Simon Duiker, modelled their style on his work.
- Vermeer's View of Delft features in a pivotal sequence of Marcel Proust's The Captive.
- Salvador Dalí, with great admiration for Vermeer, painted his own version of The Lacemaker and pitted large copies of the original against a rhinoceros in some now-famous surrealist experiments. Dali also immortalized the Dutch Master in The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table, 1934.
- Han van Meegeren was a 20th-century Dutch painter who worked in the classical tradition. Motivated by a blend of aesthetic and financial reasons, van Meegeren became a master forger, creating and selling many new 'Vermeers' before being caught and tried.[19]
- A Vermeer painting plays a key part of the dénouement in Agatha Christie's After the Funeral (1953).
- Peter Greenaway's film A Zed & Two Noughts (1985) contains a plot line about an orthopedic surgeon named Van Meegeren who stages highly exact scenes from Vermeer paintings in order to paint copies of them.
- Dutch composer Louis Andriessen based his opera, Writing to Vermeer (1997–98, libretto by Peter Greenaway), on the domestic life of Vermeer.
- Tracy Chevalier's novel Girl with a Pearl Earring and the film of the same name (2003) are named after the painting; they present a fictional account of its creation by Vermeer and his relationship with the model. The film was nominated for Oscars in cinematography, art direction, and costume design.
- Susan Vreeland's novel Girl in Hyacinthe Blue follows eight individuals with a relationship to a painting of Vermeer. The novel follows a reverse chronology from the current period to the time of Vermeer.
- The young adult novel Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett centers around the fictitious theft of Vermeer's A Lady Writing.
- Historian Timothy Brook's Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (2007) examines six of Vermeer's paintings for evidence of world trade and globalization during the Dutch Golden Age.
- A 2010 Epsom Derby Favourite was named Jan Vermeer.[20]
- The song "No one was like Vermeer" by Bostonian singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman pays tribute to Vermeer's painstaking technique.
- Bob Walkenhorst in his solo album "The Beginner" wrote a rockabilly song, "Jan Vermeer", which begins with "I wish I could dance like Jan Vermeer!"
- J.P. Smith's novel, The Discovery of Light, deals largely with Vermeer.
- Notes
- ^ His name was Reijnier or Reynier Janszoon, always written in Dutch as Jansz. or Jansz; this was his patronym. As there was another Reijnier Jansz at that time in Delft, it seemed necessary to use the Pseudonym "Vos", meaning Fox. From 1640 onward he had changed his alias to Vermeer.
- ^ In 1647 Gertruy, Vermeer's only sister, married a frame maker. She kept on working at the inn helping her parents, serving drinks and making beds.
- ^ In the 17th century it was common for the upper classes to marry outside the city walls, maybe for romantic reasons, or most likely, to avoid criticism because of their religious beliefs.
- ^ Catholicism was not a forbidden religion, but tolerated in the Dutch Republic, due to the Dutch Revolt. Services were held in hidden churches (so-called Schuilkerk) and Catholics were restrained in their careers, unable to get high-ranking jobs in city administration or the national government. After 1648 some people were tired of the religious wars and returned to the Catholic church.
- ^ A Roman Catholic chapel now exists at this spot
- ^ When Catharina Bolnes was buried in 1688, she was registered as the "widow of Johan Vermeer". In the seventeenth century Johannes was a popular name and spelling was not consistent. The name could be spelled in the Dutch (Johan or Johannes), French (Joan), Italian (Giovanni), Greek (Johannis), or other style depending on background, education or family tradition.
- ^ As the parish registers of the Delft Catholic church do not exist anymore, it is impossible to prove but likely that his children were baptized in a hidden church.
- ^ Identifiable works include compositions by Utrecht painters Baburen and Everdingen
- ^ Van Ruijven's son-in-law Jacob Dissius owned 21 paintings by Vermeer, listed in his heritage in 1695. These paintings were sold the year after in Amsterdam in a much studied auction, published by Gerard Hoet.
- Citations
- ^ "The Procuress: Evidence for a Vermeer Self-Portrait" Retrieved September 13, 2010
- ^ a b Jonathan Janson, Essential Vermeer: complete Vermeer catalogue accessed 16 June 2010
- ^ "Jan Vermeer". The Bulfinch Guide to Art History. Artchive. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/V/vermeer.html. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
- ^ "An Interview with Jørgen Wadum". Essential Vermeer. 5 February 2003. http://www.essentialvermeer.com/interviews_newsletter/wadum_interview.html. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
- ^ Koning, Hans. 1977. The World of Vermeer. Time-Life Books, New York.
- ^ "Barker, Emma, et al. ''The Changing Status of the Artist'', p. 199. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-300-07740-8". Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=A_1Ady0GAuUC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=the+question+remains+why+did+modest+celebrity+vermeer&source=bl&ots=JV9QCG6rNW&sig=hTdRVR-u8W5wONlz9JvnJExoVX8&hl=en&ei=__y3SurBNNWE8Qa57rmTDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=the%20question%20remains%20why%20did%20modest%20celebrity%20vermeer&f=false. Retrieved 2012-04-19.
- ^ If largely unknown to the general public, Vermeer's reputation was not totally eclipsed after his death: "While it is true that he did not achieve widespread fame until the nineteenth century, his work had always been valued and admired by well-informed connoisseurs." Blankert, Albert, et al. Vermeer and his Public, p. 164. New York: Overlook, 2007, ISBN 978-1-58567-979-9
- ^ "Vermeer: A View of Delft". The Economist. 1 April 2001. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-73409194.html. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
- ^ "Vermeer's Name". Essential Vermeer. http://www.essentialvermeer.com/vermeers_name.html. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
- ^ "Digital Family Tree of the Municipal Records Office of the City of Delft". Beheersraad Digitale Stamboom. 2004. http://www.archief.delft.nl/main.asp?lang=en. Retrieved 21 September 2009. "The painter is recorded as: Child=Joannis; Father=Reijnier Jansz; Mother=Dingnum Balthasars; Witnesses=Pieter Brammer, Jan Heijndricxsz, Maertge Jans; Place=Delft; Date of baptism=31 October 1632."
- ^ Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History By John Michael Montias. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ev1xavyduGYC&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=Jacob+van+Loo+schilder&source=bl&ots=KIbHbwPRxm&sig=uwQMdw2PWWl9t8iDyb7XZ1WZgf8&hl=en&ei=IXvVSvXvFsrz-Qa27LH7Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCIQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=fight%20Reynier&f=false.
- ^ Andrew Graham-Dixon, The Madness of Vermeer, BBC Four
- ^ http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/32.100.18
- ^ "Vermeer biography". National Gallery of Art. http://www.nga.gov/feature/vermeer/bio.shtm. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
- ^ Essential Vermeer Retrieved 29 September 2009
- ^ "Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History - John Michael Montias - Google Boeken". Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ev1xavyduGYC&pg=PA207&lpg=PA207&dq=%22hendrick+fromantiou%22&source=web&ots=KHfE7DUVvj&sig=7N55Uhv_T3cWyf-9iPpPkJ9QfHk. Retrieved 2012-04-19.
- ^ "Vermeer and the Camera Obscura". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/vermeer_camera_01.shtml. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
- ^ B. Broos, A. Blankert, J. Wadum, A.K. Wheelock Jr. (1995) Johannes Vermeer, Waanders Publishers, Zwolle
- ^ "The Lying Dutchman". Nytimes.com. 2008-06-22. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/books/review/Julius-t.html?_r=2. Retrieved 2012-04-19.
- ^ "Snap up Snow Fairy". Irishtimes.com. 2010-06-06. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2010/0604/1224271818475.html. Retrieved 2012-04-19.
- Further reading
- ^ W. Liedtke, p. 893
- ^ W. Liedtke, p. 866
- ^ W. Liedtke, p. 867
- ^ pp. 370-371
- ^ p. 104
- ^ pp. 344-345. The number of children seems inconsistent, but 11 was stated by his wife in a document for the city council. One child died after this document was written.
- ^ pp. 339-344
- Kreuger, Frederik H. (2007). New Vermeer, Life and Work of Han van Meegeren. Rijswijk: Quantes. pp. 54, 218 and 220 give examples of Van Meegeren fakes that were removed from their museum walls. Pages 220/221 give an example of a non-Van Meegeren fake attributed to him. ISBN 978-90-5959-047-2. http://www.quantes.nl/uitgeverij.php?aut=4. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
- Schneider, Nobert (1993). Vermeer. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag. ISBN 3-8228-6377-7.
- Sheldon, Libby; Nicola Costaros (February 2006). "Johannes Vermeer’s ‘Young woman seated at a virginal". The Burlington Magazine (1235).
- Steadman, Philip (2002). Vermmeer's Camera, the truth behind the masterpieces. Oxford University Press. isbn= 0-19-280302-6
- Wadum, J. (1998). "Contours of Vermeer". In I. Gaskel and M. Jonker. Vermeer Studies. Studies in the History of Art. Washington/New Haven: Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers XXXIII. pp. 201–223. .
- Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. (1981,1988). Jan Vermeer. New York: Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1737-8.
- (Videos): Vermeer: Master of Light - at the National Gallery of Art, Washington
- Johannes Vermeer Biography, Style and Artwork
- Vermeer Exhibition 2008 commentary by Esmée Quodbach of the Center for the History of Collecting in America via the Frick Collection
- Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance In-depth discussion of this painting in the National Gallery of Art along with discussion of the artist's life, conservation, illustration of related works
- Essential Vermeer, In-depth coverage of Vermeer's life, works, and environment
- Entry in Britannica encyclopaedia
- Virtual Vermeer, Familiar biography, interesting entries
- Van Meegeren's Fake Vermeers at Arttube (Museum Boijmans)
- Vermeercentrum, housed at the site of the former St. Lucas Guild in Delft. (The Vermeer Centre offers a visual voyage of discovery through the life, work and city of Johannes Vermeer.)
- Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Jan Vermeer. Getty Vocabulary Program, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.
- Painting discovered in Vermeer
| Persondata |
| Name |
van Vermeer, Johannes |
| Alternative names |
Delft, Jan Vermeer |
| Short description |
Painter |
| Date of birth |
Baptized 31 October 1632 |
| Place of birth |
Delft, Netherlands |
| Date of death |
Buried 15 December 1675 |
| Place of death |
Delft, Netherlands |
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