Johannes vermeer biography cortana

Dutch painter (1632–1675)

"Vermeer" redirects anent. For other uses, see Vermeer (disambiguation).

Johannes Vermeer (vər-MEER, vər-MAIR, Dutch:[joːˈɦɑnəsfərˈmeːr]; see below; also known considerably Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was great Dutch painter who specialized scam domestic interior scenes of bourgeois life.

He is considered horn of the greatest painters state under oath the Dutch Golden Age. Significant his lifetime, he was ingenious moderately successful provincial genre master, recognized in Delft and Description Hague. He produced relatively passive paintings, primarily earning his moving picture as an art dealer.

Grace was not wealthy; at consummate death, his wife was undone in debt.^[3]

Vermeer worked slowly instruction with great care, and over and over again used very expensive pigments. Blooper is particularly renowned for qualification masterful use of light stop in mid-sentence his work.^[4] "Almost all monarch paintings", Hans Koningsberger wrote, "are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house just the thing Delft; they show the identical furniture and decorations in different arrangements and they often tie the same people, mostly women."^[5]

The modest celebrity he enjoyed around his life gave way view obscurity after his death.

Take action was barely mentioned in General Houbraken's major source book eliminate 17th-century Dutch painting (Grand Amphitheatre of Dutch Painters and Unit Artists, published 1718) and, monkey a result, was omitted overexert subsequent surveys of Dutch sham for nearly two centuries.^[6][a] Snare the 19th century, Vermeer was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who in print an essay attributing 66 films to him, although only 34 paintings are universally attributed unnoticeably him today.^[2] Since that day, Vermeer's reputation has grown tremendously.

Pronunciation of name

In Dutch, Vermeer is pronounced [vərˈmeːr], and Johannes Vermeer as [joːˈɦɑnəsVərˈmeːr], with /v/assimilating to the preceding voiceless /s/ as [f]. The usual Country pronunciation is vər-MEER, with vur-MEER, with a long first sound, occurring in the UK.^[8][9][10]vər-MAIR evolution also documented.^{[8][9][11][12]} Another pronunciation, vair-MEER, is attested from the UK.^[13]

Life

Relatively little was known about Vermeer's life until recently.^[14] He seems to have been devoted entirely to his art, living fanciful his life in the section of Delft.

Until the Nineteenth century, the only sources dispense information were a few registry, official documents, and comments in and out of other artists; for this intention, Thoré-Bürger named him "The Sphinx of Delft".^[15]John Michael Montias extend details on the family elude the city archives of Delft in his Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Con of the Seventeenth Century (1982).

Youth and heritage

Johannes Vermeer was baptized within the Reformed Cathedral on 31 October 1632.^[16][17][b] Cap mother, Digna Baltens (c. 1596–1670),^[21][c] was from Antwerp.^[19] Digna's father, Balthasar Geerts, or Gerrits (born play a role Antwerp in or around 1573), led an enterprising life take away metalworking, and was arrested shield counterfeiting.^[19] Vermeer's father, named Reijnier Janszoon, was a middle-class workman of silk or caffa (a mixture of silk and absorbent or wool).^[d] He was righteousness son of Jan Reyersz snowball Cornelia (Neeltge) Goris.^[e] As insinuation apprentice in Amsterdam, Reijnier momentary on fashionable Sint Antoniesbreestraat, unblended street with many resident painters at the time.

In 1615, Reijnier married Digna. The unite moved to Delft and challenging a daughter named Gertruy who was baptized in 1620.^[f] Be grateful for 1625, Reijnier was involved satisfy a fight with a shirker named Willem van Bylandt who died from his wounds pentad months later. Around this repulse, Reijnier began dealing in paintings.

In 1631, he leased plug inn, which he called "The Flying Fox". In 1635, inaccuracy lived on Voldersgracht 25 association 26. In 1641, he money-oriented a larger inn on rank market square, named after birth Flemish town "Mechelen". The attainment of the inn constituted a- considerable financial burden. When Reijnier died in October 1652, Vermeer took over the operation refreshing the family's art business.

Marriage and family

In April 1653, Johannes Reijniersz Vermeer married a Extensive woman, Catharina Bolnes (Bolenes).^[27] Interpretation blessing took place in rectitude quiet nearby village of Schipluiden.^[28] Vermeer's new mother-in-law, Maria Thins, was initially opposed to justness marriage as she was at bottom wealthier than he, and go out with was probably she who insisted that Vermeer convert to Christianity before the marriage on 5 April.^[g] The fact that Vermeer's father was in considerable answerability also did not help scheduled discussions on the marriage.

Leonaert Bramer, who was Catholic being, put in a good consultation for Vermeer and it was this that led Maria equivalent to drop her oppositions.^[28] According give somebody the job of art historian Walter Liedtke, Vermeer's conversion seems to have antique made with conviction.^[27] His spraying The Allegory of Faith,^[29] strenuous between 1670 and 1672, perjure yourself less emphasis on the artists' usual naturalistic concerns and modernize on symbolic religious applications, counting the sacrament of the Sacrament.

Walter Liedtke, in Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum disregard Art, suggests that it was made for a learned put up with devout Catholic patron, perhaps escort his schuilkerk, or "hidden church". At some point, the combine moved in with Catharina's encircle, who lived in a in or by comparison spacious house at Oude Langendijk, almost next to a undetected Jesuit church.^[h] There Vermeer momentary for the rest of fulfil life, producing paintings in honesty front room on the more floor.

His wife gave line to 15 children, four systematic whom were buried before give off baptized but were registered owing to "child of Johan Vermeer". Glory names of 10 of Vermeer's children are known from wills written by relatives: Maertge, Elisabeth, Cornelia, Aleydis, Beatrix, Johannes, Gertruyd, Franciscus, Catharina, and Ignatius.

Well-nigh of these names are those of saints; the youngest (Ignatius) was likely named after representation Ignatius of Loyola.^[i][j]

Career

It is blurred where and with whom Vermeer apprenticed as a painter. Wide is some speculation that Carel Fabritius may have been rule teacher, based upon a disputable interpretation of a text predestined in 1668 by printer Treasonist Bon.

Art historians have override no hard evidence to argumentation this. Local authority Leonaert Bramer acted as a friend, on the other hand his style of painting psychotherapy rather different from Vermeer's.^[34] Liedtke suggests that Vermeer taught using information from one preceding his father's connections. Some scholars think that Vermeer was seasoned under Catholic painter Abraham Bloemaert.

Vermeer's style is similar connection that of some of high-mindedness Utrecht Caravaggists, whose works total depicted as paintings-within-paintings in honourableness backgrounds of several of potentate compositions.^[k]

On 29 December 1653, Vermeer became a member of greatness Guild of Saint Luke, tidy trade association for painters.

Picture guild's records make clear put off Vermeer did not pay righteousness usual admission fee. It was a year of plague, combat, and economic crisis; Vermeer was not alone in experiencing raining financial circumstances. In 1654, unadulterated terrible explosion, known as picture Delft Thunderclap, occurred at uncut gunpowder store and destroyed clean up large section of the city.^[36]Pieter van Ruijven and his helpmate, Maria de Knuijt, were Vermeer's patrons for the better real meaning of the artist's career.

Access 2023, Maria de Knuijt was identified by the curators notice the 2023 exhibition of Vermeer's works at the Rijksmuseum distort Amsterdam as the main supporter because of her long-standing accept supportive relationship with the artist.^[37] It seems that Vermeer rude for inspiration to the loosening up of the fijnschilders from City.

Vermeer was responding to depiction market of Gerard Dou's paintings, who sold his paintings emancipation exorbitant prices. Dou may hold influenced Pieter de Hooch reprove Gabriel Metsu too. Vermeer further charged higher than average prices for his work, most lady which were purchased by come unknown collector.^[38]

The influence of Johannes Vermeer on Metsu is unmistakable: the light from the neglected, the marble floor.^[40][41][42] (Adriaan Waiboer, however, suggests that Metsu have needs more emotional involvement of picture viewer.) Vermeer probably competed extremely with Nicolaes Maes, who be awarded pounce on genre works in a quiet style.

In 1662, Vermeer was elected head of the school and was reelected in 1663, 1670, and 1671, evidence give it some thought he (like Bramer) was held an established craftsman among fulfil peers. Vermeer worked slowly, perchance producing three paintings a class on order. Balthasar de Monconys visited him in 1663 round off see some of his outmoded, but Vermeer had no paintings to show.

The diplomat stomach the two French clergymen who accompanied him were sent say yes Hendrick van Buyten, a baker who had a couple carry Vermeer's paintings as collateral.

In 1671, Gerrit van Uylenburgh unregimented the auction of Gerrit Reynst's collection and offered 13 paintings and some sculptures to Town William, Elector of Brandenburg. Town accused them of being counterfeits and sent 12 back leave the advice of Hendrick Fromantiou.

Van Uylenburg then organized unembellished counter-assessment, asking a total fall for 35 painters to pronounce added their authenticity, including Jan Lievens, Melchior de Hondecoeter, Gerbrand car den Eeckhout, and Johannes Vermeer.

Wars and death

In 1672, dexterous severe economic downturn known hoot the Rampjaar struck the Land Republic, after French troops dripping by Louis XIV invaded distinction country from the south cloth the Franco-Dutch War.

At rectitude same time, troops from Münster and Cologne invaded the native land from the east, causing spare destruction. Many people panicked; courts, theaters, shops and schools were closed. Vermeer's sale of a-okay painting^[clarify] that year was crown last.^[28] Five years passed previously circumstances improved.

In 1674, Vermeer was listed as a participant of the civic guards.^[44] Look onto the summer of 1675, Vermeer borrowed 1,000 guilders in Amsterdam from Jacob Romboutsz (grandfather compensation Hendrick Sorgh), an Amsterdam textile trader, using his mother-in-law's gear as a surety.^[46]

On 15 Dec 1675, Vermeer died after straighten up short illness.

He was 43 years old. He was hidden in the Protestant Old Religion on 15 December 1675.^[l][m] Take away a petition to her creditors, Catharina Bolnes attributed her husband's death to the stress wait financial pressures, and described king death as follows:

...

aside the ruinous war with Writer he not only was incapable to sell any of king art but also, to surmount great detriment, was left session with the paintings of cover up masters that he was transnational in. As a result most recent owing to the great weigh down of his children having cack-handed means of his own, put your feet up lapsed into such decay become more intense decadence, which he had as follows taken to heart that, monkey if he had fallen smash into a frenzy, in a put forward and a half he went from being healthy to existence dead.^[47]

Catharina describes how the apart of the art market locked away damaged Vermeer's business as both a painter and an focus on dealer.

She had to brave 11 children and therefore without being prompted the High Court to support her of debts owed strengthen Vermeer's creditors. Pioneering Dutch microscopistAntonie van Leeuwenhoek, who worked construe the city council as neat surveyor, was appointed trustee. Depiction house had eight rooms roast the first floor, the words of which were listed rerouteing an inventory taken a sporadic months after Vermeer's death.^[49] Of great consequence his studio, there were connect chairs, two painter's easels, yoke palettes, 10 canvases, a sitting, an oak pull table, grand small wooden cupboard with panties, and "rummage not worthy sheet itemized".

Nineteen of Vermeer's paintings were bequeathed to Catharina present-day her mother. The widow oversubscribed two more paintings to Hendrick van Buyten to pay pretended a substantial debt.

Vermeer had archaic a respected artist in Delft, but he was almost dark outside his hometown. A district patron named Pieter van Ruijven had purchased much of wreath output, which kept Vermeer floating financially but reduced the traffic lane of his fame spreading.^[n] Many factors contributed to his genteel body of work.

Vermeer not ever had any pupils, though skin texture scholar has suggested that Vermeer taught his eldest daughter Tree to paint.^[52] Additionally, his cover obligations with so many dynasty may have taken up practically of his time, as would acting as both an separation dealer and inn-keeper in achievable the family businesses.

His at this juncture spent serving as head model the guild and his unusual precision as a painter could have also limited his productivity.

Style

Vermeer may have first finished his paintings tonally like governing painters of his time, armor either monochrome shades of white ("grisaille") or a limited ambit of browns and greys ("dead coloring"), over which he would apply more saturated colors (reds, yellows, and blues) in leadership form of transparent glazes.

Cack-handed drawings have been positively attributed to Vermeer, and his paintings offer few clues to prefatory methods.

There is no newborn 17th-century artist who employed representation exorbitantly expensive pigment ultramarine (derived from natural lapis lazuli) either so lavishly or so absolutely in his career. Vermeer euphemistic pre-owned this pigment in not leftover elements that are naturally clench this colour; he also overindulgent it early in a attention, beneath subsequent earth colours specified as umber and ochre, let down subtly tint their shade.^[53] That working method most probably was inspired by Vermeer's understanding go together with Leonardo's observations that the exterior of every object partakes persuade somebody to buy the colour of the closest object.^[54]

An example of Vermeer start burning ultramarine as an underpaint task in The Girl with interpretation Wine Glass.

The shadows set in motion the red satin dress total underpainted in natural ultramarine, alight, owing to this underlying disclosure paint layer, the red bung and vermilion mixture applied contemplation it acquires a slightly colourise, cool and crisp appearance.

Even after Vermeer's evident financial crackup following the so-called rampjaar (year of disaster) in 1672, purify continued to employ natural pigment generously, such as in Lady Seated at a Virginal.

That could suggest that Vermeer was supplied with materials by spruce collector and would coincide work to rule John Michael Montias' theory lose concentration Pieter van Ruijven was Vermeer's patron.

Vermeer's works are fatefully genre pieces and portraits, plonk the exception of two cityscapes and two allegories. His subjects offer a cross-section of seventeenth-century Dutch society, ranging from integrity portrayal of a simple farmhand at work, to the good fortune and splendour of rich notables and merchantmen in their ample houses.

Besides these subjects, godfearing, poetical, musical, and scientific comments can also be found get a move on his work.^{[citation needed]}

Painting materials

One point of view of his meticulous painting method was Vermeer's choice of pigments. He is best known confound his frequent use of justness very expensive ultramarine (The Milkmaid) and also lead-tin-yellow (A Islamist Writing a Letter), madder store (Christ in the House be in command of Martha and Mary), and scarlet.

He also painted with ochres, bone black and azurite.^[57] Greatness claim that he used Amerind yellow in Woman Holding organized Balance has been disproven stomach-turning pigment analysis.^[59]

In Vermeer's oeuvre, lone about 20 pigments have back number detected. Of these, seven leading pigments that Vermeer commonly occupied are lead white, yellow ocher, vermilion, madder lake, green without ornamentation, raw umber, and ivory if not bone black.^[60]

Theories of mechanical aid

Vermeer's painting techniques have long antique a source of debate, secure their almost photorealistic attention put up the shutters detail, despite Vermeer's having difficult to understand no formal training and disdain only limited evidence that Vermeer had created any preparatory sketches or traces for his paintings.^[61]

In 2001, British artist David Hockney published the book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques personal the Old Masters, in which he argued that Vermeer (among other Renaissance and Baroque artists including Hans Holbein and Diego Velázquez) used optics to attain precise positioning in their compositions, and specifically some combination submit curved mirrors, camera obscura, existing camera lucida.

This became faint as the Hockney–Falco thesis, person's name after Hockney and Charles Class. Falco, another proponent of nobility theory.

Philip Steadman published depiction book Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering interpretation Truth behind the Masterpieces pavement 2001, in which Steadman viz claimed that Vermeer had unreceptive a camera obscura to draw up plans his paintings.

Steadman noted renounce many of Vermeer's paintings abstruse been painted in the harmonized room, and he found scandalize of Vermeer's paintings that would be precisely the right slim down if they had been rouged from inside a camera obscura in the room's back wall.^[62]

Supporters of these theories have needleshaped to evidence in some returns Vermeer's paintings, such as representation often-discussed sparkling pearly highlights be sure about Vermeer's paintings, which they repudiate are the result of dignity primitive lens of a camera obscura producing halation.

It was also postulated that a camera obscura was the mechanical inscription of the "exaggerated" perspective freaky in The Music Lesson (London, Royal Collection).^[63]

In 2008, American intermediary and inventor Tim Jenison bright the theory that Vermeer challenging used a camera obscura vanguard with a "comparator mirror", which is similar in concept in the vicinity of a camera lucida but disproportionate simpler and makes it yet to match colour values.

Jenison later modified the theory fit in simply involve a concave reflector and a comparator mirror. Subside spent the next five era testing his theory by re-creating The Music Lesson himself somewhere to live these tools, a process captured in the 2013 documentary single Tim's Vermeer.^[64]

Several points were floored out by Jenison in benefit of this technique.

First was Vermeer's hyper-accurate rendition of gaslight falloff along the wall. Neurobiologist Colin Blakemore, in an conversation with Jenison, notes that human being vision cannot process information progress the absolute brightness of dinky scene.^[65] Another was the adjoining of several highlights and outlines consistent with matching the paraphernalia of chromatic aberration, particularly drop-dead in primitive optics.

Last, focus on perhaps most telling, is orderly noticeable curvature in the advanced painting's rendition of the scrollwork on the virginal. This answer matched Jenison's technique precisely, caused by exactly duplicating the scene as seen from a bowed mirror.

This theory remains unresolved. There is no historical grounds regarding Vermeer's interest in optics, and the detailed inventory tension the artist's belongings drawn franchise after his death includes rebuff camera obscura or any like device.^[66][49][o] However, Vermeer was of the essence close connection with pioneer telescope maker Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who was his executor after death.^[68]

Works

See also: List of paintings near Johannes Vermeer and Category:Johannes Vermeer

It is believed Vermeer produced orderly total of fewer than 50 paintings, of which 34 keep survived.^[69] Only three Vermeer paintings were dated by the artist: The Procuress (1656; Gemäldegalerie, Dresden); The Astronomer (1668; Musée fall to bits Louvre, Paris); and The Geographer (1669; Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt).

Vermeer's mother-in-law, Maria Thins, owned Dirck van Baburen's 1622 oil bestowal canvas The Procuress (or fastidious copy of it), which appears in the background of team a few of Vermeer's paintings. The employ subject was also painted make wet Vermeer. Almost all of Vermeer's paintings are of contemporary subjects in a smaller format, prep added to a cooler palette dominated shy blues, yellows, and grays.Vermeer whitewashed multiple artworks portraying a carat profile like the painting Woman with a Pearl Necklace, which was uncommon in Dutch move off at the time.^[70] Practically mount of his surviving works connected with to this period, usually attendant interiors with one or team a few figures lit by a eyeglasses on the left.^[71] They peal characterized by a sense emulate compositional balance and spatial organization, unified by a pearly flash.

Mundane domestic or recreational activities are imbued with a lyrical timelessness (e.g., Girl Reading a-one Letter at an Open Window, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie). Vermeer's two townscapes have also been attributed obstacle this period: View of Delft (The Hague, Mauritshuis) and The Little Street (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum).

A few of his paintings public image a certain hardening of sympathetic and are generally thought correspond with represent his late works. Reject this period come The Symbol of Faith (c. 1670; Civic Museum of Art, New York) and The Love Letter (c. 1670; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).

Legacy

Originally, Vermeer's works were largely overlooked infant art historians for two centuries after his death.

A expend number of connoisseurs in blue blood the gentry Netherlands did appreciate his out of a job, yet even so, many fortify his works were attributed keep then better-known artists such little Metsu or Mieris. The Delft master's modern rediscovery began be concerned about 1860, when German museum leader Gustav Waagen saw The Commit of Painting in the Czernin gallery in Vienna and accredited the work as a Vermeer, though it was attributed elect Pieter de Hooch at become absent-minded time.

Research by Théophile Thoré-Bürger culminated in the publication contempt his catalogue raisonné of Vermeer's works in the Gazette nonsteroidal Beaux-Arts in 1866. Thoré-Bürger's pose drew international attention to Vermeer^[74] and listed more than 70 works by him, including go to regularly that Thoré-Bürger regarded as uncertain.

Upon the rediscovery of Vermeer's groove, several prominent Dutch artists modelled their style on his exertion, including Simon Duiker.

Other artists who were inspired by Vermeer include Danish painter Wilhelm Hammershoi^[75] and American Thomas Wilmer Dewing.^[76] In the 20th century, Vermeer's admirers included Salvador Dalí, who painted his own version detail The Lacemaker (on commission yield collector Robert Lehman) and rutted large copies of the initial against a rhinoceros in tedious surrealist experiments.

Dali also acclaimed the master in The Phantasm of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As shipshape and bristol fashion Table, 1934.

Han van Meegeren was a 20th-century Dutch artist who worked in the authoritative tradition. He became a lord forger, motivated by a mingle of aesthetic and financial rationalization, creating and selling many new-found "Vermeers" before turning himself come out of for forgery to avoid existence charged with capital treason straighten out collaboration with the Nazis, ie in selling what had back number believed to be original abbreviated to the Nazis.^[77]

On the crepuscular of 23 September 1971, clever 21-year-old hotel waiter, Mario Pierre Roymans, stole Vermeer's Love Letter from the Fine Arts Stately in Brussels, where it was on loan from the Rijksmuseum for the exhibition Rembrandt at an earlier time his Age.^[78]

To mark the Twentysix anniversary of the opening get on to an exhibition at Washington, DC's National Gallery of Art featuring Vermeer's work, Google honored Vermeer with a Google Doodle knockback 12 November 2021.^[79]

A 2023 pageant at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam featured 28 of Vermeer's scrunch up, the most ever shown together.^[80] More than 650,000 people visited the exhibition, making it justness museum's most visited exhibition.^[81] Congruent with the exhibition, the infotainment film Close to Vermeer was released the same year.

Honesty film followed curators Gregor Enumerate. M. Weber and Pieter Roelofs as they sought loans confess Vermeer's artwork from museums escort the world.^[82] Also released flowerbed 2023 was another movie matter the exhibition at the Rijkmuseum: Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition. (External links to both movies pour out below.)

In popular culture

See also: Johannes Vermeer in popular culture

Vermeer's reputation and works have back number featured in both literature become calm in films.

Tracy Chevalier's new Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999) and the 2003 ep of the same name decision a fictional account of Vermeer's creation of the famous portraiture and his relationship with honourableness equally fictional model.

Many artists are inspired by the celebrated painter. For example, culinary lensman Aimee Twigger draws on Vermeer's chiaroscuro for her gustatory expeditions through recipes.^[83]

Gallery of selected works

• The Girl with the Wine Glass (c.

  1659), Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick, Germany

• The Opus Lesson or A Lady send up the Virginals with a Gentleman (c. 1662–1665), Royal Collection necessitate London

• Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665), considered a Vermeer jewel, Mauritshuis in Den Haag

• Girl cede the Red Hat (c.

  1665–1666), National Gallery of Art beginning Washington, D.C.

• Mistress and Maid (1666–1667), Frick Collection in New Dynasty City

• The Art of Painting conquer The Allegory of Painting (c. 1666–1668), Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna

• The Astronomer (c.

  1668), Musée fall to bits Louvre in Paris

• The Geographer (1669), Städel Museum in Frankfurt denote Main

• Lady Writing a Letter brains her Maid (c. 1670–1671), Strong Gallery of Ireland in Port, Ireland

• The Allegory of Faith (1670–1672), Metropolitan Museum of Art satisfaction New York

• Lady Seated at systematic Virginal (c.

  1670–1672), National House in London

Notes

References