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The Sphinx of Delft
Vermeer was born in Delft and spent all his life in the town. But although local records give a few glimpses of his life, he remains an enigmatic figure, aptly called 'The Sphinx of Delft'.
Vermeer is one of the most highly regarded Dutch artists of all time, yet his life remains shrouded in obscurity. As far as we know, he spent all his life in his native town of Delft, where he seems to have worked as an art dealer and run a tavern in order to support his family of 11 children. It is hardly surprising that painting appears to have been a part-time activity, and Vermeer’s output was very small.
There are only 35 authenticated works by Vermeer, but in them the artist perfected a style and approach to painting that were entirely his own. His best-known pictures show interiors with one or two figures reading, writing or playing music, quietly absorbed in their tasks. The colours are always fresh and cool, the paint sparkles with reflected light, and the total image is one of composed serenity.
Among the many great painters of 17th-century Holland, Vermeer now stands second only to Rembrandt in both popular appeal and scholarly esteem. His pictures rank among the most familiar and best-loved images in world art.
Johannes (or Jan) Vermeer was born in Delft and baptized in the town’s New Church on 31 October 1632.
He was the second of two children of Reynier Jansoon and Digna Balthasars. (It was only from 1640 that his father Renier started using the surname Vermeer. At the time of his marriage in 1615 Renier had given his occupation as silk worker, but he later became an innkeeper, also dealing in paintings. In 1623 he was almost bankrupt, but he subsequently prospered (maybe because of skilful dealing in the art market,) and in 1641 he bought an inn and a large house called ‘Mechelen’ in the main square of Delft. The young Vermeer grew up in this tavern, which may have had something of the atmosphere conveyed in the paintings of Brower and Steen.
Delft, where Vermeer was to spend his entire life, was then Holland’s fourth largest town. It was prosperous and tranquil, with a very attractive centre dominated by the medieval buildings and spires that appear in many views of the town painted by Delf artists. The town had a tradition of painting stretching back to the late 15th century, although it had become something of an artistic backwater by the time of Vermeer’s birth. But around 1650, a few talented painters settled in the town, and Vermeer’s career coincided with a brief golden period in Delft painting.
Pieter Jansz van Asch: The Delft City Wall with the Houttuinen
It is not known which of the Delf artists Vermeer chose as his master, but with a picture dealer for a father it must have been easy to indulge a taste in art and find a suitable teacher. Leonaert Bramer has often been suggested as a possible candidate. He spent most of his life working in Delft, and there is a documented connection between him and Vermeer: it was Bramer who intervened on Vermeer’s behalf when his future mother-in-law, Maria Thins, at first refused to sign the marriage contract. Bramer is an interesting minor artist who had travelled in Italy and France, and is remembered mainly for his dramatically lit night scenes.
Leonart Bramer: Peasants by a Fire
But there are no similarities between his dark, crowded pictures and Vermeer’s paintings, a consideration casting doubt on the idea that he was Vermeer’s artist mentor.
There are more obvious stylistic links between Vermeer’s work and that of Carel Fabritius, who had studied with Rembrandt and who moved to Delft in about 1650.
Carel Fabritius: A Young Man in a Fur Cap and a Cuirass (probably a self portrait)
The fact that Fabritius seems to have shared Vermeer’s interest in optical experimentation in his paintings further reinforces the suggestion of a connection between the two artists, but in the absence of any documentation, the precise nature of the relationship must remain obscure. Fabritius was killed in the most disastrous event in Delft’s history, when the gunpowder magazine exploded in 1654 destroying part of the town.
View of Delft after the Explosion of 1654 by Egbert van der Poel
The artist’s death led a delft publisher to compose a memorial poem, the last verse of which mentions Vermeer: ‘Thus this Phoenix was extinguished, At the summit of his strength. But providentially there rose from his ashes Vermeer, who took up his brush and brandished it with mastery’. Whether or not this implies a master-pupil relationship between the two artists, it shows that they were somewhat linked in the public mind.
Vermeer was made a master in the painters’ guild on 29 December 1653. Earlier that year he married Catharina Bolnes.
The signatures of Johannes Vermeer and his wife Catharina Bolnes on a legal document of 1655
She came from a higher social class, and her mother, who was divorced and wealthy, at first objected to the match. But Bramer and another respected citizen went to see her and persuaded her to change her mind, no doubt assuring her of her future son-in-law’s talent and good prospects. Little is known of the details of the marriage. The couple had 11 children and, although they do not appear in Vermeer’s paintings, it is quite likely that Catherina served as a model for pictures such as Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.
Catharina was a Catholic, and it is possible that Vermeer was converted to his wife’s faith. The Allegory of Faith symbolises the Catholic faith in particular, and Vermeer’s youngest sun had the typically Catholic name of Ignatious.
Vermeer: Allegory of Faith
Vermeer’s father had died the year before the marriage, and it is sometimes assumed that the young painter took over the running of the inn. There is no direct evidence for this, but it is not improbable as Vermeer continued to live in ‘Mechelen’, and he would probably have needed a source of income in addition to painting to support his growing family.
It is highly likely that Vermeer took over his father’s art business as well. He certainly dealt in paintings and must have had something of a reputation as a connoisseur, for in 1672 he went to The Hague (the only time he is recorded as leaving Delft) to be an ‘expert witness’ in a dispute concerning the authenticity of a group of Italian paintings.
Vermeer gave them short shrift, declaring that they were not only ‘no outstanding Italian paintings, but on the contrary, great pieces of rubbish’.
Vermeer must have been a respected figure among his fellow artists in Delft because in 1602-63, and again in 1670-71, he was a ‘hooftman’ (‘headman or governor) of the painters’ guild. We know that his pictures were highly prized by some because of the account of Balthasar de Montconys, a French art dealer who visited Delft in 1663: ‘I saw the painter Vermeer who did not have any of his works’ he wrote in his journal, ‘but we did see one at a baker’s, for which six hundred livres had been paid, although it contained but a single figure, for which six pistoles would have been too high a price in my opinion.’
Vermeer’s pictures were either bought by the humble burghers of Delft, or given to tradesmen to offset family debts.
Jan Steen: Family Meal
There is also some evidence that Vermeer had a regular patron, Jacob Dissius, who apparently owned 19 of the artist’s works in 1682, seven years after the artists death.
In spite of the patronage, Vermeer found himself in financial difficulties. In 1657 he is recorded as borrowing 200 guilden, and in 1972 he rented out his house for 180 guilden a year and moved in with his mother-in-law. Later that year Holland was invaded by a French army, and although the occupying force was soon driven out, the economic crisis that accompanied the trouble caused the art market to collapse.
In spite of the patronage, Vermeer found himself in financial difficulties. In 1657 he is recorded as borrowing 200 guilden, and in 1972 he rented out his house for 180 guilden a year and moved in with his mother-in-law. Later that year Holland was invaded by a French army, and although the occupying force was soon driven out, the economic crisis that accompanied the trouble caused the art market to collapse.
Adam Frans van der Meulen: Crossing of the Rhine in 1672
Vermeer’s already unstable business affairs collapsed with it. When Vermeer died later in 1675 at the age of 43, he left a large unpaid debt, eight children under age, and a host of financial problems for the widow. A few months after his funeral in Delfts Old Church, Catharina was declared bankrupt.
Vermeer’s reputation was entirely eclipsed after his death, and his pictures were often sold at auction as works by masters such as Hooch and Metsu. It was not until the 19th century that he was rescued from oblivion by the French journalist Theophile Thoré who succeeded in identifying about two thirds of the Vermeers we know today. After that, Vermeer’s fame grew quickly, and now all but a handful of Vermeer’s authenticated paintings are the prize possessions of the world’s greatest galleries, but the artist still remains as Proust once described him; ‘an enigma in an epoch in which nothing resembled or explained him.’
Vermeer produced a small body of work of exceptional beauty and clarity. He is best remembered for his gentle scenes of domestic life, which can often be read on another level.
Although a few of the pictures attributed to Vermeer are still the subject of scholarly controversy, it is generally agread that the number of surviving paintings from his hand is not much more than 35. There are good reasons for thinking that the number was never much larger, for most of the Vermeers in 17th and early 18th century sources can be identified with paintings that survive today, and only a few of the paintings now attributed to him are not mentioned in these sources. It is almost inevitable that in the course of centuries some of Vermeer’s work must have accidentally perished, but it is reasonably certain that the majority has survived intact.
Vermeer often signed his work, but only three of his 30 odd paintings are dated. One of them is The Procuress, which reveals the influence of Dirk von Baburen’s The Procuress, which Vermeer’s family owned.
None of the remainder can be firmly dated on other evidence, so it has proved difficult to construct a convincing chronology for his work. Nevertheless, three broad phases are generally recognised in Vermeer’s development. In the first, he painted large-scale history pictures which are so different from the quiet domestic scenes associated with his name that even 30 years after his reputation was established by Theophile Thoré, one of them - the signed Diana and her Companions – was attributed to an obscure namesake, Jan Vermeer of Utrecht.
The only other picture of this type by Vermeer is Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, but it is possible that other early works were destroyed in the explosion of 1654 in Delft.
Both these pictures show the influence of Italian painting with which Vermeer was well acquainted through the family art-dealing business. They were probably painted a year or two before The Procuress, his first dated work.
This painting provides a transition to the next phase of Vermeer’s development, for although it is a large-scale work of a warm tonality, it takes its subject from contemporary life, as did virtually all of his subsequent pictures. But after The Procuress, Vermeer favoured much quieter subjects, generally involving only one or two figures engaged in simple everyday tasks of making music, and his colouring became much cooler. This represents the middle phase of Vermeer’s career, when he created those gentle images of domestic life that raised genre painting to a level that has never been surpassed.
His two celebrated townscape pictures also date from this period of grate achievement.
Holland produced many outstanding landscape painters in the 17th century, but in his one excursion into the territory Vermeer produced a work that surpassed even the greatest masterpieces in lucidity and truth to life. The atmosphere of an overcast day is caught perfectly, as the sun breaks through the heavy clouds to light up the distant roofs.
It has long been thought that Vermeer used a camera obscura to help with his compositions. Many characteristics of his work, such as the white dots of paint he often used and his enlargement of foreground figures may relate to the optical effects produced by the device. There were two basic types of camera obscura in Vermeer’s time. The simplest kind was a darkened room with a small aperture through which light could pass, especially useful in composing landscapes.
The image is reflected on the wall upside down and reversed.
The more developed type was a small box with lenses, which could be used for interior views.
The image is the right way up but is reversed.
There are two main features of Vermeer’s work that point towards the use of a camera obscura. The first is his exaggerated perspective, in which figures and objects in the foreground seem to loom very large compared with the others further back. Anyone who has used a wide-angle lens on a camera will know that this is just the effect that they can create.
The second indication is the way in which certain parts of Vermeer’s paintings – particularly sparkling highlights – often look fuzzy or out of focus: again, this is exactly what one would expect to happen with the primitive lenses then in use.
In the final phase of Vermeer’s work, many critics discern a certain hardening of style and loss of freshness. He was such a marvellous craftsman that he never painted any picture that does not have passages of great beauty, but the works that are attributed to his final years, when his financial problems were worsening, do seem to lack the utter naturalness of his finest works. Among these later productions is the only one of Vermeer’s paintings that is generally considered a conspicuous failure – the Allegory of Faith.
The lumbering personification of Faith produces an almost comical effect and it is tempting to imagine that Vermeer took the commission reluctantly, for his talents were totally unsuited to this type of work, which Rubens, for example, did so well.
Superficially, Vermeer’s genre paintings are very similar to those of many of his Dutch contemporaries. In his early career he was heavily influenced by the works of the Utrecht masters, Baburen, Terbrugghen and Honthorst, who worked in the dramatic style of the Italian artist, Caravaggio.
Barburen’s The Procuress (see above) appears in the background of two of his works and was clearly one of his favourite paintings. But what sets Vermeer apart from his fellow artists is that he would not settle for anything less than perfection. His best works have a sense of harmony and serenity that lifts them from the sober prose of run-of-the-mill interior scenes to the realms of poetry, and his colouring and brushwork are among the miracles of art.
Vermeer is particularly associated with subtle harmonies of blue, pale yellow and grey, but one of his most remarkable characteristics is his ability to use bright and strongly lit colours without them ever seeming to jar. In The Lacemaker, for example, the three primary colours – blue, red and yellow – are set off broadly against one another.
This vibrant blend of colour is enhanced by his masterly brushwork. In reproductions, Vermeer’s paintings sometimes look smooth and highly detailed, but in front of the originals one is always aware of the marks of the brush.
The paint is often applied quite broadly and little raised points of paint suggest the play of light on objects in a way that is totally convincing optically and of the utmost delicacy pictorially. The Dutch painter and critic Jan Veth remarked that his paint looks like crushed pearls melted together.
Vermeer: Maid with a Milk Jug
Here the contrast between light and shadow on the woman’s left arm brings Manet to mind. The tiny specks of light are like those seen through an unfocused lens. This implies that Vermeer had observed the phenomenon himself through a camera obscura.
Nothing is known for certain about Vermeer's working methods. No drawings by him are known, so it may well be that he painted directly onto the canvas. This seems to be borne out by the representation of the artist in The Artist's Studio, where the design is indicated on the canvas in progress with a few strokes of light paint and there is no elaborate underpainting.
After Vermeer’s death, the biologist Anthony van Leeuwenhoeck, who later became famous for his work with microscopes, was appointed trustee of his estate There is no other indication that the great painter and the great scientist new each other, but a common interest in optics could well have brought them together. As with so much to do with Vermeer, there is wide scope for speculation as the facts of the matter remain intriguingly elusive.
Picture Exhibition
This is one of Vermeer’s most beautiful works, relying on the most subtle of light and colour effects. It probably conveys a gentle moral on the theme of worldly vanities.
This fresh and simple portrait is remarkable for its delicacy and immediacy. The lustre of the pearl earring is imported to the girl’s eyes and moist lips.
Described in an early auction catalogue as ‘a drunken sleeping young woman at a table’, this painting may represent the sin of ‘idleness’ or ‘sloth’. The curios spacial construction with its sloping foreground points to the use of an optical device like the camera obscura.
The meaning of this work is implicit in the painting hanging on the wall showing Cupid, the god of love, holding up a playing card. Such images were described in detail in emblem books of the time, as symbols of fidelity – often with the motto ‘Only One’. Vermeer’s painting may allude to the relationship between true love and musical harmony. The woman’s gentle radiance and quietly confident gaze seems to reinforce this interpretation.
This allegory on the art of painting shows an artist in historical dress painting a portrait of Clio, the Muse of History. The inclusion of a map of the Netherlands on the back wall implies that the allegory refers specifically to Dutch painting and it may be that Vermeer was seeking to emphasise the importance of history painting in the art of the country.
It is often suggested that Vermeer has here represented himself at work and it would be apposite for an artist about whom so little is known to produce such a teasingly enigmatic self-portrait. Adolf Hitler seized this painting from the family that owned it and it was among a horde of such works recovered from an Austrian salt mine in 1945.
Nothing is known for sure about the circumstances in which the picture was painted, but it is possible that Vermeer intended it as a gift to the Delft Guild of St Luke, of which he was an official. At about the time he was painting the picture, the Guild was having new headquarters built on the Voldegracht behind Vermeer’s house. The building was adorned with statues and paintings of the liberal arts, so a picture like this, with its complex symbolism, would have been in keeping with the rest of the decorations. But Vermeer was so attached to this work that he kept it until his death in 1675.
The painting has many of the characteristics we think of as typical of Vermeer’s works: a single source of light on the left, a chair placed at a three-quarter angle to the viewer, an elaborate carpet on the table, a picture on an otherwise bare wall and quiet figures absorbed in an everyday activity.
Until 1866, when this painting was identified by Theophile Thoré in a private collection in Paris, it was attributed to Pieter de Hooch. Fifteen years later it was sold for 88,000 francs, then an enormous sum, an indication of how much Thoré’s work had done to establish Vermeer’s reputation.
Vermeer’s two townscape paintings are his most original works, for in them he seems to look with an utterly fresh eye and without any sense of contrivance. This picture is particularly loved in Holland, where it is called simply the ‘Straatje’ (The Street). The blue-looking foliage has been caused by fading of yellow from the green.
The inscription on the lid of the virginals reads Musica Letitiae Comes Medicina Doloris (Music is the companion of joy and the balm of sorrow), and it has been suggested that rather than being the woman’s teacher, the man is in fact paying court to her. Vermeer, however, subtly refrains from making anything explicit.
The right-hand painting on the wall behind the three figures is The Procuress by Dirk van Baburan. It appears in another of Vermeer’s works and it seems that his mother-in-law owned it. The sexual subject hints that stronger passions may lurk behind the quiet exteriors of Vermeer’s figures.
The ‘dramatic’ features of this work – the rather exaggerated sense of movement into depth and the strong lighting in the background – suggest a late date, when Vermeer was moving away from the serene simplicity of his most characteristic works. In 1971 this picture was stolen while on exhibition in Brussels and seriously damaged.
Apart from the early Procuress, this and The Astronomer are the only works by Vermeer that bare a date. The two later paintings were executed as a pair and remained together until 1797. Vermeer has shown the geographer pausing for thought as he looks up from his work.
Pictures of scholars in their studies were popular in 17th century Holland – Rembrandt made several. But whereas Rembrandt usually gives his figures a mystical quality, Vermeer’s astronomer and geographer are engaged in deep but rational thought. Vermeer’s works suggest that he, too, had a mind that loved clarity.
The sense of luxury in this painting – in the woman’s obviously expensive clothes, for example – probably reflects the French influence that was making itself felt in Dutch painting at this time. Many critics see in this greater sophistication a weakening of Vermeer’s powers, but none deny the beauty with which the rich materials are painted.
1632-1675
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