Vermeer (1632-1675) is among the most major painters of the Dutch Baroque era, culturally and intellectually opening that world to us. He painted only about 40 pictures, and eight of these are in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick. Perhaps his best known painting is the “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” which inspired a novel and a movie. Vermeer worked slowly and carefully, using high quality pigments and possibly a camera obscura, a box with a pinhole allowing one to see a reflected image. Although little written material concerns him personally, circumstantial evidence and various documents establish his family circumstances and professional success. He was elected twice to head the painters’ guild in Delft, and he was known to foremost art connoisseurs. His subjects are most often quiet interior spaces with one or two figures playing music or reading letters; these are glimpses into life in the comfortable bourgeois world of Delft. This course will be an excursion into current and past interpretations of his mesmerizing paintings. Recommended authors of Vermeer monographs include: Arthur Wheelock, Michael Montias, Albert Blankert, and Lawrence Gowing. See also exhibition catalogues from the Washington National Gallery (Vermeer and the Masters of Dutch Genre Painting, 2017; Johannes Vermeer, 1995); the Metropolitan Museum of Art (A View of Delft: Vermeer and his Contemporaries, 2000); and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Class Distinctions, 2014). Vermeer website: essentialvermeer.com. Dutch art in general: Wayne Franits, Mariët Westermann, Gary Schwartz, Peter Sutton.
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