Birth Year : 1632
Death Year : 1675
Country :
Johannes Vermeer, the finest genre painter of the seventeenth century,
was born and died in Delft. He was the son of a silk weaver and tavern
owner who sold art as well as beer, a combination of wares not unusual
for Holland. So very little is known about Vermeer that it is only presumed
that he was at one time an apprentice to Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt's
pupil. Vermeer married in 1653, had eight children, kept the tavern that
he had inherited from his father, and painted in his spare time. He attracted
very little, if any, attention during his lifetime, and it was not until
1860 that a Parisian art critic published a monograph on Vermeer and brought
him to public notice and belated recognition. Thirty-three canvases have
now been positively identified as Vermeer's work and it is upon these that
his fame rests. Vermeer's cool, perfectly balanced paintings present a
world so calm as to be almost breathless. Most of his works present one
female figure quietly occupied at some womanly task: making lace, reading,
pouring milk, or playing a lute. Occasionally two figures appear in this
intimate world, and their relationship seems without speech as if all the
world were under a spell of silence. Vermeer's composition seems extremely
simple, but is in fact carefully and intricately laid out. In each work,
a careful analysis will show a series of interlocking rectangles filling
up the entire surface with volumes rounded by silvery light coming from
the side. The world is turned by Vermeer into a geometric pattern, inhabited
by people who seem objects is a still life. He employed a soft palette,
with blues, golds, and soft reds predominating.
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Johannes
(Jan) Vermeer
Milkmaid,
The
Johannes
(Jan) Vermeer
Lacemaker,
The
Johannes
(Jan) Vermeer
The
Art of Painting
Johannes
(Jan) Vermeer
Little
Street
Johannes
(Jan) Vermeer
Maiden
with a Pearl Earring
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all Johannes (Jan) Vermeer
Books about Johannes
Jan Vermeer |
