Johannes Vermeer

Since his rediscovery in the later half of the 19th century, Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) has been one of the most admired and influential European painters. His extremely private life, his supposed use of a camera obscura, and the fact that his teacher remains unidentified have, until recently, encouraged a view of the “Sphinx of Delft” as an isolated genius shrouded in an air of mystery. Walter Liedtke’s new monograph reveals Vermeer’s life to be well-documented and places his work in the context of the Delft school and of Delft society as a whole. Vermeer’s many admirers will relish Liedtke’s exploration of subtleties of meaning and refinements of technique and style. Alongside the most historical approach to Vermeer to date, the annotated color catalogue of Vermeer’s complete paintings reveals a master whose rare sensibility may be described but not explained.

Walter Liedtke is Curator of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has written extensively on Dutch painting and the Delft School.

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This work showcases Vermeer's oeuvre with very high quality reproduction. Note especially the clarity of two wondrous Vermeer portraits, the Girl with the Pearl Earring and the Girl with the Red Hat; both have been recently cleaned and restored and are presented here with much of the the subtle values and luminous color characteristic of the originals. The Little Street shimmers with tincture of bricks and mortar, while The View of Delft generates a sense of lapidary majesty. The Lady Reading, the Milkmaid, the Woman in Blue, and the Woman Holding a Balance are simply splendid, as are the Astronomer and the Geographer.

This book is not only a fascinating biography of one of the greatest painters of the seventeenth century but also a social history of the colorful extended family to which he belonged and of the town life of the period. It explores a series of distinct worlds: Delft's Small-Cattle Market, where Vermeer's paternal family settled early in the century; the milieu of shady businessmen in Amsterdam that recruited Vermeer's grandfather to counterfeit coins; the artists, military contractors, and Protestant burghers who frequented the inn of Vermeer's father in Delft's Great Market Square; and the quiet, distinguished "Papists Corner" in which Vermeer, after marrying into a high-born Catholic family, retired to practice his art, while retaining ties with wealthy Protestant patrons. The relationship of Vermeer to his principal patron is one of many original discoveries in the book.

"[With Montias] the past is hard put to hide what were in all truth its secrets.... One will read Vermeer and His Milieu several times, as [Montias] has read the archives; he is an indispensable companion for anyone who likes the seventeenth century."
--Lawrence Gowing
The [London] Times Literary Supplement

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Edward Snow's A Study of Vermeer, first published in 1979 and here presented in an expanded and elaborately revised version, starts from a single premise: that we respond so intensely to Vermeer because his paintings reach so deeply into our lives. Our desire for images, the distances that separate us, the validations we seek from the still world, the traces of ghostliness in our own human presence these, the book proposes, are Vermeer's themes, which he pursues with a realism always in touch with the uncanny. As Snow traces the many counterpoised sensations that make up Vermeer's equanimity, he leads us into a world of nuances and surprise. A Study of Vermeer is passionate and visual in its commitments. Snow works from the conviction that viewing pictures is a reciprocal act symbiotic, consequential, real. His discussions of Vermeer's paintings are conducted in a language of patient observation, and they involve the reader in an experience of deepening relation and ongoing visual discovery. Extremely enlightening.

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In this impressive and informative work, the artist's origins and home environment are revealed and his paintings are displayed and discussed within the context of time alongside a history of the influences and repercussions of this master's art.

This lavishly illustrated and beautifully bound edition includes reproductions of all of Vermeer's paintings, many of the works of his contemporaries, and documents relating to his life and city, Delft.

In the hands of an award-winning historian, Vermeer’s dazzling paintings become windows that reveal how daily life and thought—from Delft to Beijing—were transformed in the seventeenth century, when the world first became global.

"Vermeer's Hat is a deftly eclectic book, in which Timothy Brook uses details drawn from the great painter's work as a series of entry points to the widest circles of world trade and cultural exchange in the seventeenth century. From the epicenter of Delft, Brook takes his readers on a journey that encompasses Chinese porcelain and beaver pelts, global temperatures and firearms, shipwrecked sailors and their companions, silver mines and Manila galleons. It is a book full of surprising pleasures."- Jonathan Spence, author of The Death of Woman Wang, In Search of Modern China and The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

Econ Talk: The Library of Economics and Liberty

Click here to access an excellent podcast interview with Mr. Brook by Russ Roberts.

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Best remembered for selling a fake Vermeer to Hermann Goering during the Second World War, Han van Meegeren never admitted to creating any fakes dating from before 1937--but there have always been rumors suggesting that his career actually began much earlier than that. Drawing upon three years of archival research conducted in five nations and interviews with the descendants of Van Meegeren’s partners in crime, Jonathan Lopez reveals that Van Meegeren worked virtually his entire adult life turning out bogus old masters for a ring of art-world intriguers operating out of London and Berlin. Major dealers like Sir Joseph Duveen were stung by these forgeries, as was the great Pittsburgh banker Andrew Mellon, who bought two of Van Meegeren's fake Vermeers during the 1920s. As Koen Kleijn of De Groene Amsterdammer has remarked, “The Man Who Made Vermeers shatters the popular image of Han van Meegeren as a lone gunman or picaresque rogue. Jonathan Lopez reveals the master forger as an arch-opportunist, a cunning liar, and a fervent sympathizer of the fascist cause from as early as 1928. Deftly reconstructing an insidious network of illicit trade in the art market's underworld, Lopez allows few reputations to emerge unscathed in this gripping and delicious book.”

click here for a slide show of all the images from the book.

click here for an extract containing the introduction and first chapter.

About the Author

JONATHAN LOPEZ's writings on art and history appear frequently in Apollo: The International Magazine of Art and Antiques, published in London. The Man Who Made Vermeers grew out of an article that originally appeared in Dutch in De Groene Amsterdammer. Lopez lives with his wife, an art historian and critic, in Manhattan

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Vermeer could not have anticipated that The Girl with a Pearl Earring would make him a pop culture icon. This oversized art book paints a wide-ranging critical and historical portrait. Vermeer completed only 30-some paintings, which are beautifully reproduced in plates that celebrate every facet of these marvelous works. Other illustrations develop a rich context for the paintings, complementing three notable essays (following a brief introduction by the late French artist Aillaud). Blankert, a Vermeer expert at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, serves as eloquent docent in two essays, plus a catalogue that documents provenance to the present day. Montias, an expert in 17th-century Dutch politics and economics who died in 2005, combs the scarce records of 16th- and 17th-century Delft to conjure Vermeer's environment, drawing on primary documents—from marriage certificates to house inventories listing objects that often appear in paintings (also listed in a full appendix). Unlike many, neither Blankert nor Montias see Vermeer as a neglected genius: he did well enough in his lifetime—or would have, if he hadn't had so many children and nefarious relatives. But as they do show, the artist's star rose through the 18th century, and the scholars, updating their 1978 British edition of this work, bring the story up to the present. 164 color and 35 b&w illus.

Edward Snow's A Study of Vermeer, first published in 1979 and here presented in an expanded and elaborately revised version, starts from a single premise: that we respond so intensely to Vermeer because his paintings reach so deeply into our lives. Our desire for images, the distances that separate us, the validations we seek from the still world, the traces of ghostliness in our own human presence these, the book proposes, are Vermeer's themes, which he pursues with a realism always in touch with the uncanny. As Snow traces the many counterpoised sensations that make up Vermeer's equanimity, he leads us into a world of nuances and surprise. A Study of Vermeer is passionate and visual in its commitments. Snow works from the conviction that viewing pictures is a reciprocal act symbiotic, consequential, real. His discussions of Vermeer's paintings are conducted in a language of patient observation, and they involve the reader in an experience of deepening relation and ongoing visual discovery.

Extremely enlightening.

As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger's Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. The con man's mark was Hermann Goering, one of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a fanatic collector of art.

It was an almost perfect crime. For seven years a no-account painter named Han van Meegeren managed to pass off his paintings as those of one of the most beloved and admired artists who ever lived. But, as Edward Dolnick reveals, the reason for the forger's success was not his artistic skill. Van Meegeren was a mediocre artist. His true genius lay in psychological manipulation, and he came within inches of fooling both the Nazis and the world. Instead, he landed in an Amsterdam court on trial for his life.

Vermeer and the Dutch Interior was a major loan exhibition organised by the Museo Nacional del Prado, Spain’s premier museum. It brings together nine works by the celebrated artist Johannes Vermeer, whose small output of only 35 known paintings is dispersed in various collections in Europe and America. Amongst the paintings on loan to the Prado is Vermeer’s Girl reading a letter at an open window from the Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, a painting that has not travelled since 1984. The exhibition comprises 41 paintings, including six by Gerard ter Borch, six by Pieter de Hooch and seven by Gabriël Metsu, all contemporaries of Vermeer. Madrid will be the only venue for this enlightening exhibition.

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Book Description

Johannes Vermeer, one of the greatest Dutch painters and for some the single greatest painter of all, produced a remarkably small corpus of work. InVermeer's Family Secrets, Benjamin Binstock revolutionizes how we think about Vermeer's work and life. Vermeer, “the Sphinx of Delft,” is famously a mystery in art: despite the common claim that little is known of his biography, there is in fact an abundance of fascinating information about Vermeer’s life that Binstock brings to bear on Vermeer’s art for the first time; he also offers new interpretations of several key documents pertaining to Vermeer that have been misunderstood. Lavishly illustrated with more than 180 black and white images and more than sixty color plates, the book also includes a remarkable color gatefold spread that presents the entirety of Vermeer's oeuvre arranged in chronological order in 1/20 scale, demonstrating his gradual formal and conceptual development. No book on Vermeer has ever done this kind of visual comparison of his complete output. Like Poe's purloined letter, Vermeer's secrets are sometimes out in the open where everyone can see them. Benjamin Binstock shows us where to look. Piecing together evidence, the tools of art history, and his own intuitive skills, he gives us for the first time a history of Vermeer's work in light of Vermeer's life.

On almost every page of Vermeer's Family Secrets, there is a perception or an adjustment that rethinks what we know about Vermeer, his oeuvre, Dutch painting, and Western Art. Perhaps the most arresting revelation of Vermeer's Family Secrets is the final one: In response to inconsistencies in technique, materials, and artistic level, Binstock posits that several of the paintings accepted as canonical works by Vermeer, are in fact not by Vermeer at all but by his eldest daughter, Maria. How he argues this is one of the book's many pleasures.

An artifact is a fragment of world alteration. In an effort to change the way people view works of art, Ivan Gaskell - curator and lecturer at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard - opens up a discussion of one 17th century painting by Vermeer, suggesting how art conveys complex ideas via purely visual, non-linguistic means. He also describes the interface between fine art and photographic reproductions, the relationship between art and museums and proposes that museums serve a therapeutic function.

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This rich and rewarding volume accompanies a wide-ranging exhibition, which opened to deserved acclaim at New York's Metropolitan Museum and was also on view at the National Gallery in London, it evokes the artistic life of Delft from 1200 to 1700 and the rich history of the town's influence on Dutch culture. This volume is the most exhaustive study to date of the School of Delft and an an extraordinary study of Vermeer's work as well.

In Vermeer: A View of Delft, Anthony Bailey presents an intriguing portrait of Vermeer's life and character, long lost in history. Bailey re-creates the atmosphere of the times, introduces Vermeer's colleagues, portrays his domestic life in vibrant detail; he also sheds light on the science and artistry behind the glorious, almost mystical, paintings. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, Vermeer will stand as the classic work on Vermeer for years to come.

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A lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogue dedicated to Vermeer and held at the National Gallery, Washington D.C. and the Mauritshuis, The Hague in 1995. Up to date analysis of the technique, artistry, and history of the painter's work. Contains many original insights and recent discoveries regarding his pictorial technique and use of one point perspective.

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Vermeer's use of the camera obscura, a forerunner of the modern camera, had been speculated since the nineteenth century. Steadman's book provides further proof of its use meticulously reconstructing Vermeer's studio and its furnishing. Fascinating and wonderfully illustrated.

The Mauritshuis has recently published a brand new introductory catalogue on Johannes Vermeer. This kind of publication, a handy volume, is of great use even in the Age of Internet. It is loaded full with crisp images of many Vermeer's paintings and numerous details and a host of relative documents and work of other artists. The text is expertly written and extremely informative. Especially valuable are the large reproductions of the three Vermeer's in the Mauritshuis collection: Girl with a Pearl Earring, View of Delft and Diana and her Companions. A fascinating state-of-the-art production.

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The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer offers a systematic overview of the artist's life and work that will be useful to specialists, students, and the general public. Its eleven essays include studies of the artist's development and approach to painting, women as a subject in Vermeer's work, the role of Catholicism in Vermeer's life and art, and the artist's reputation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among other topics. Collectively, these essays provide a balanced and enlightening examination of many different aspects of Vermeer's art.

ESSENTIAL

The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer (Cambridge Companions to the History of Art)

Collected in memory of the Vermeer scholar and Yale economist J. Michael Montias, these essays take into account the latest trends in the field and provide new data on a wide range of topics in Netherlandish art. Themes include the reception of paintings and architecture; art collecting as interpreted through inventories and other documents that reveal modes of display; relationships between patrons and painters; recently found or attributed works of art; artists as teachers; and the art market. Taken together, these focused studies offer fresh perspectives on the historical appreciation and evaluation of art. Drawing upon J.M. Montias’ contribution to art history, these 32 essays present new analyses, attributions, and documents on Netherlandish art and material culture – including the work of Vermeer, Rubens, Rembrandt, van Eyck and others – by internationally known scholars of art history and the economics of art.

Of particular interest are those essays directly related to Vermeer:

1. Albert Blankert, "The Case of Hans van Meegeren's Fake Vermeer 'Supper at Erasmus' Reconsidered"

2. Yoriko Kobayashi-Sato, "Vermer and the Use of Perspective"

3. Herman Roodenburg, "Visiting Vermeer: Performing Civility"

exhibition catalogue of Vermeer's restored "Procuress"
Staatliche Kunstssammlungen Dresden, Dresden, 2004

This finely and abbundantly illustrated catalogue contains the following essays in German only:

1. "Johannes Vermeer's Procuress, a work of Dutch Caravaggism?" by Uta Neidhart
2. "Johannes Vermeer's Procuress newly observed" by Albert Blankert
3. "The Turkish rug in Johannes Vermeer's 'Procuress'" by Chrisitne Klose
4. " Johannes Vermeer's 'Procuress,' Provenance and subject matter" by Annaliese Mayer-Meintschel
5. "Johannes Vermeer's 'Procuress'- Restoration and Painting Technique Findings" by Marlies Giebe
6. "Vermeers painting technique - a mixed technique. Research into binding agents in the painting 'Procuress'" by Johan Koller, Irene Fiedler and Ursula Baumer
7. " Known and unknown. New research in Vermeer's palette in the 'Procuress'" by Heike Stege. Cornelia Tilenschi and Achim

EXCELLENT

address inquiries and orders to:
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Publikationsvertrieb
Postfach 12 05 51
D-01006 Dresden

Telephone: +49 (0)3 51 / 4 91 47 25
Fax: +49 (0)3 51 / 4 91 47 66

or email directly to:
evelin.pfeifer@skd.smwk.sachsen.de

The range of Vermeer's genius-encompassing scientific and philosophical investigation, pictorial and painterly virtuosity, musical, philosophical, and literary allusions-was enormous. This is but one of the reasons that those who believe Vermeer did not make extensive use of such devices as the camera obscura are not even wrong. Such arguments entirely miss the point of Vermeer's complexity. Robert Huerta's book should inspire an appreciation of Vermeer in the context of the natural science of his time and "more [as he says] in the tradition of a Durer, a Velazquez, or even a Leonardo...." Huerta's bibliography is extensive, his research exhaustive, and his conclusions are always supported with substantial evidence. Even when he conjectures, he does so in an informed way. Note especially the link he makes with Vermeer's "The Astronomer" and Raphael's "Urania, Prime Mover" at the Vatican.
This book will reward those who have both a working knowledge of Vermeer and an appreciation of the history of science as well as an understanding of scientific methodology. It is an exciting addition to literature about Vermeer and builds upon the insights of Gowing and Steadman as those insights have helped to explain Vermeer's expressive "optical way."

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This edition takes a fresh look at the innovative role Vermeer played in Dutch art in the 17th century. It examines the 4 paintings by Vermeer in the Rijksmuseum's collection, which span his whole career.

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This book is a collection of writings on aspects of painting in Delft during the period 1650–1675. Walter Liedtke, highly respected curator and scholar of Dutch and Flemish art, discusses at length the work of four artists: Carel Fabritius, Gerard Houckgeest, Pieter de Hooch, and Johannes Vermeer. Liedtke considers recent interpretations and research on these artists' works, exploring in particular the relationship between style and observation in their paintings. The book begins by examining the question of whether such a community or tradition as the "Delft School" ever existed and by reviewing earlier opinions on the matter. The second chapter is devoted to Fabritius's small townscape A View in Delft, its reconstruction as an illusionistic image originally mounted in a perspective box, and the painting's significance in the narrow and in the broadest sense. In the third chapter, Liedtke focuses on a specialized genre in Delft--views of actual church interiors--and offers another explanation of how naturalistic paintings, even those that carefully record existing sites, inevitably depend upon pictorial precedents. The fourth chapter on De Hooch and the "South Holland" tradition of genre painting prepares the way for the fifth, a look at Vermeer's early work. In the final chapter, the author considers Vermeer's work as a mature artist, one who has completely mastered his means

EXCELLENT

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Through a historical analysis of Vermeer's method of production and a close reading of his art, Daniel Arasse explores the originality of this artist in the context of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Arguing that Vermeer was not a painter in the conventional, commercial sense of his Dutch colleagues, Arasse suggests that his confrontation with painting represented a very personal and ambitious effort to define a new pictorial practice within the classical tradition of his art.

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In a study that sweeps from Classical Antiquity to the seventeenth century, Robert D. Huerta explores the common intellectual threads that link the art of Johannes Vermeer to the philosophy of Plato. Examining the work of luminaries such as Plotinus, Nicholas of Cusa, St. Augustine, Ficino, Raphael, Keller, Galileo, Descartes, and Hoydens, Huerta argues that the concurrence of idealism and naturalism in Vermeer's art reflects the Dutch master's assimilation of Platonic and classical ideals, concepts that were part of the Renaissance revival of classical thought. Pursuing a Platonic path, Vermeer used his paintings as a visual dialectic, as part of his program to create a physical instantiation of the Ideal. Illustrated. Robert D. Huerta is an independent historian, focusing on the intersection between art and science during the early modern period.*

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This surely ranks as one of the most profound interpretations of a painter ever written. Gowing reveals to us the mysterious relationship between Vermeer's psychological nature and the creation of his masterpieces. It can be read and re-read many times over. Absolutely essential: a masterpiece in its own right.

Essential

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More than three centuries after he created them, the exquisite, enigmatic paintings of Johannes Vermeer continue to intrigue. In this volume, twenty-three scholars, conservators, and scientists investigate Vermeer’s art and the milieu in which he worked. They offer a wide range of approaches to the Dutch master, including technical studies of his paintings, iconological studies of his imagery, archival studies of his immediate surroundings, and historical studies of the reception of his art. Together, the writings of these contributors provide insight into the current state of understanding of Vermeer’s art. The authors focus particular attention on the unique qualities of his paintings and explore the interpretive significance of his subtle formal devices, his use of pictures within pictures, and the physical construction of his works.

EXCELLENT

The catalogue investigates the contextual relationship of the letter theme to such cultural developments as the spread of literacy,
the establishment of a reliable and widespread postal delivery system, the rise of an epistolary literature, and the importation and
translation of letter writing manuals. From Westerbaen's translation into Dutch of Ovid's Heroides to the multiple French and Dutch
editions of Puget de la Serre's Secrétaire à la Mode (the most popular letter writing manual of the 17th century), the literature of
the period attests to the allure and mystique of letter writing.

EXCELLENT

There have been several historically based novels, as well as Biographies of noted artists in the last year. A common complaint has often been the lack of illustrations in general, and the very few color plates in particular. Full color plates are extremely expensive, and are often scarce in a work for that reason alone. Major books on an artists works can be extremely expensive, and almost prohibitively so, when what is desired is a companion reference to another book.

The alternative is either very expensive coffee table books, or handfuls of airline tickets to globe trot to the location of the works. The latter is certainly the best, but for just under $10.00, these are much more efficient.

EXCELLENT

Norbert Schneider has written many books on art and among them is this small volume in which he addresses the paintings of Vermeer. Though the book is short (96 pages) it mirrors the output of the artist . Each painting is reproduced with surprising clarity even though as usually , a few times the color leaves something to be desired-. However, the many fine details are alone worth of praise.

Focusing on life in Vermeer ’s native city, Delft, the author describes the prosperous Dutch seaport in Vermeer ’s times, a bustling world of merchants, sea traders, and artists. The result is a fascinating portrait that brings us closer to an understanding of the remarkable artist.

With its reproductions of the 35 paintings known to be authentic, the book also functions as a catalogue of the artist’s work.

The author has fascinating details to relate and he is lively and impassioned in style. He writes about Vermeer's "suspended psychological moment". John Nash divides the paintings into Music, Letters, showing the works of master painters of Delft of the time and how they treat similar subjects. Good reproductions and finely fopcused writings.

EXCELLENT

The canonicity of Jan Vermeer's oeuvre was originally established within the general framework of modernist aesthetics. The specific concepts guiding critics were developed in the context of a reappraisal of Dutch painting in the nineteenth century, particularly in Germany and France. In this study, Christiane Hertel interprets the suppositions underlying Vermeer's canonization and also addresses the critical problem of locating his paintings in history.

This book begins with a single premise: that Vermeer painted images not only of extraordinary beauty, but of extraordinary strangeness. To understand that strangeness, Bryan Jay Wolf turns to the history of early modernism and to ways of seeing that first developed in the 17th century. In a series of provocative readings, Wolf presents Vermeer in bracing new ways, arguing for the painter's immersion in - rather than withdrawal from - the intellectual concerns of his day. The result is a Vermeer we have not seen before: a painter whose serene spaces and calm subjects incorporate within themselves, however obliquely, the world's troubles.

Stone investigates such diverse topics as seventeenth-century advances in optics and the attendant explosion of data about the natural world; the proliferation of material goods in prosperous Dutch homes; and the compelling realism of Golden Age paintings. Illustrated with sixteen pages of color reproductions of Dutch masterworks, as well as five black-and-white images, Tables of Knowledge will interest intellectual and cultural historians of the early modern period, art historians, and historians and philosophers of science.

review:
"In a bold and surprising move, this book pairs up the French philosopher and scientist Descartes with the Dutch artist Vermeer, looking at each through the lens of the other. This seemingly odd couple results in a fascinating new exploration of the intersections between science and art."
-Sara Melzer, UCLA

In this accessible introduction to the key Delft artists, Axel Rüger places Vermeer's masterpieces within their historical and artistic context. This book, accompanying a major loan exhibition at the National Gallery, London, reveals how artistic and cultural developments of the early seventeenth century paved the way for the flowering of art in the city, culminating in the master works of the 1650s and 1660s. Investigating the artistic production of the city genre by genre, the author builds a picture of the so-called Delft School and its influences.

Excellent

Johannes Vermeer had a keen intellectual mind. Looking at his paintings The Geographer and The Astronomer, we are struck by the detailed rendering of the scientific world. We see figures poring over their work in rooms filled with land and sea charts, books, globes and measuring instruments. Vermeer was particularly interested in maps.

Another characteristic feature of his oeuvre and one which bears out his interest in science and scholarship is his use of perspective. He determined the place of the horizon and vanishing point with the utmost precision, resorting to such recent devices as the camera obscura, employing geodetic techniques and fixing the vanishing point with pins and thread. This all goes to show that in an age of discoveries Johannes Vermeer was a child of his time.