Johannes Vermeer

A bit of an enigma, even in his own time, Johannes Vermeer was born in Delft, the Netherlands in 1632, baptized Joannis, and buried Jan Vermeer in 1675. While most of the information we have on the artist today is largely speculative, Johannes Vermeer did make an impact on the art community of his time, even in his short 44 years. Vermeer’s work went largely unnoticed for nearly a century following his death until his works were rediscovered by art critic Thoré Bürger who, due to the lack of information surrounding the elusive artist, began referring to Johannes Vermeer as the "Sphinx of Delft". Johannes Vermeer now sits beside Rembrandt and Frans Hals as the greatest of the seventeenth-century Dutch artists. Like Rembrandt and Hals, Vermeer died in poverty leaving behind only 35-39 examples of his paintings. For an artist who painted such few examples, his reputation is quite impressive.

Johannes Vermeer built a strong reputation for himself as an artist in his lifelong hometown of Delft, but his works failed to migrate beyond the boundaries of this Dutch village during his lifetime. Vermeer didn’t take on pupils, so there was no “school of Vermeer” established to carry on his techniques in any type of formal manner. Vermeer’s inheritance of the family business in dealing art, upon his father’s passing, and raising 10 children (of a recorded 14 births) with his wife, Catharina Bolenes, are both factors attributed to Johannes Vermeer turning out a mere thirty-five paintings throughout the course of his career. These factors all played a part in Vermeer’s relative obscurity as a painter. During his life, while still an artist, Vermeer made his living as an art dealer and an innkeeper. In 1672, the French decided to take over his rich homeland. The ensuing economic chaos following their occupation destroyed Vermeer’s income. Johannes Vermeer died at the age of forty-three leaving behind a wife and fifteen children.

Vermeer married Catharina Bolnes in April 1653. She was one and a half years older than he, and not long after both of their signatures appeared on a document. After examination, it is clear the difference in personality between the two, if one might admit writing being born from personality. Vermeer’s earliest three or four authentic paintings demonstrates the problems with religious, mythological, and genre painting Vermeer struggled with at the school of Utrecht, a school which originated from Caravaggism. Vermeer's legacy lives on in modern times, as art lovers, as well as critics, admire Johannes Vermeer’s precise detail and masterful ability to portray the nuances of indoor lighting in relation to his many domestic subjects.

Vermeer was the second child and only son to Reynier Janz and his wife Digna Baltens. His family background would be described today as lower-middle class. His grandparents were illiterate as was his mother, and he spent most of his childhood growing up in a large house, which his father bought after having improved his economic situation. Appearantly Reynier was a hardworking, conservative man. Johannes Vermeer is best known in the modern art world for his oil paintings oil paintings such as A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window; A Lady Seated at a Virginal; A Maid Asleep; A Water Pitcher; Christ with Mary and Martha; Dianan and her Nymphs; Girl Interrupted in her Music; Girl with a Glass of Wine; Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid; Mistress and Maid; Portrait of a Woman; Study of a Young Woman; The Concert; The Glass of Wine; The Guitar Player; The Love Letter; View of Delft and Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.

Many of Vermeer’s oil paintings are set in similar indoor scenes; sometimes even in the same room as one another, with the furniture in the background rearranged a bit. The depiction of ordinary, routine events or settings is another staple of this 17th century artist’s work, and each painting is characterized by Vermeer’s precise use of light and color. Girl with a Pearl Earring is one of his most famous masterpieces today.

Filling his simple domestic scenes with symbolism and grandeur, Vermeer’s paintwork was described by the Dutch art critic Jan Veth as “crushed pearls melted together.” Johannes Vermeer’s forgotten work was lifted out of obscurity by a nineteenth-century French art critic who compared his work to the realism of Gustave Courbet. While the "Sphinx of Delft" may have spent much of his life in artistic obscurity, Johannes Vermeer is, today, the subject of curiosity, and even of study, among art critics and art enthusiasts, alike.