Essential Vermeer

A Young Woman standing at a Virginal, about 1670–2
© The National Gallery, London. Bought, 1892

special exhibition of a vermeer Painting

Vermeer's Lady Standing at the Virginal part of a special exhibition, Love
Love is in the air at the Laing Art Gallery
Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.
19 April – 13 July 2008

Love is in the air at the Laing Art Gallery, as flirtation, disappointment and intimacy are among the themes explored in a new exhibition. Love is a new National Gallery touring exhibition, which looks at the ways artists have responded to the pains and pleasures of love over the centuries. It features work by artists including Tracey Emin, David Hockney, Johannes Vermeer and Marc Chagall. The Laing’s Marble Hall will also be home to Marc Quinn’s spectacular sculpture, Kiss.

click here for more information...

7 Vermeers travel to Japan

Vermeer and the Delft Style
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno-koen
August 2 - December 14, 2008

Vermeer and the Delft Style features 7 rare masterpieces by Johannes Vermeer and other paintings by his contemporaries affording viewers a suggestive glance of Golden Age of Dutch Art.  There has been no occasion, where these masterpieces come together in one exhibition ever hosted in Asia and only three of the Vermeer’s have been formally exhibited.The Vermeer paintings included in the exhibition are: The Little Street, Diana and her Companions, The Girl with the Wineglass, Woman with a Lute,  Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, The Art of Painting' and the recently re-attributed A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals which is rarely on public view. The exhibition also features the miniscule masterpiece View of Delft by Carel Fabritius, a splendid view of Delft by Van der Heyden and two fine De Hoogh’s.

Vermeer Exhbit

West Coast art lovers to see a Vermeer when the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., exhibits “A Lady Writing"

Nov. 7 through Feb. 2, 2009

West Coast art lovers will be offered a rare opportunity to see a Vermeer when the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., exhibits A Lady Writing, above, from Nov. 7 through Feb. 2, 2009. On loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the painting, one of about 35 known works by Vermeer, will come to Pasadena as part of a series of exchanges between the Norton Simon foundations and the National Gallery.

Although the Simon will offer only a single painting, it is planning a complementary series of lectures and other events.

E.V. website addition

An Interview with Timothy Brook, author of

VERMEER'S HAT: THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY AND THE DAWN OF THE GLOBAL WORLD

A painting shows a military officer in a Dutch sitting room, talking to a laughing girl. In another, a woman at a window weighs pieces of silver. Vermeer’s images captivate us with their beauty and mystery: What stories lie behind these stunningly rendered moments? As Timothy Brook shows us, these pictures, which seem so intimate, actually offer a remarkable view of a rapidly expanding world. The officer’s dashing hat is made of beaver fur, which European explorers got from Native Americans in exchange for weapons. Those beaver pelts, in turn, financed the voyages of sailors seeking new routes to China. There—with silver mined in Peru—Europeans would purchase, by the thousands, the porcelains so often shown in Dutch paintings of this time. Moving outward from Vermeer’s studio, Brook traces the web of trade that was spreading across the globe.

Click here to read this exclusive EV interview

a detail of the Kaart Figuratief picturing one of the many windmills of Delft

E.V. website addition

Maps of Delft

Vermeer was not alone in his fixation for maps. Maps were something very Dutch and were sold in enormous quantities even though an extremely limited number has survived in respects to the amount described in inventories, catalogues and other sources. Luckily, the Kaart Figuratief, one of the finest maps to be produced, offers a spectacular birds's-eye-view of the Vermeer's hometown Delft.

Click here to explore the history of the principle maps of Delft

vermeer center reopens

Although the newly-built Vermeer Center of Delft was quickly overcome by economic woes, it now seems destined to reopen. On the evening of 11th December, when the citizens of Delft gather in Market Place for the traditional Lichtjesavond ("Lights' evening") the Center will open free of charge  to Delft citizens.
From 2nd January 2008 it wi`ll be opened to the public.

The center offers a valid educational starting point for the thousands visitors who flock to Vermeer's native city which, in fact, has not a single original painting by the native artist. Keep in touch with the Center's future by signing up free of the Essential Vermeer Newsletter or by clicking on the Center's website listed below.

E.V. website addition

Vermeer-Related Documents

Much of what we know about the life of Vermeer and his extended family comes from documents conserved in the Delft Municipal Archives. This study examines 10 such documents with images from the authentic documents.

(available exclusively at
Lulu.com)

Vermeer-related publication

How to Paint Your Own Vermeer: Recapturing Materials and Methods of a Seventeenth-Century Master
(289 page)
by Jonathan Janson

Which materials and techniques did Johannes Vermeer use to create his masterpieces? Is it still possible to emulate those methods today? Contemporary American painter Jonathan Janson offers straightforward, practical advice on how to reproduce Vermeer's day-to-day working procedures as closely as possible in your own studio. Detailed explanations document each and every step, from the stretching of the canvas to the three-step method used by Vermeer and his contemporaries including indispensable historical and theoretical background regarding the art and craft of Northern seventeenth-century painters.

In the first part, Vermeer's palette, drawing, pigments, brushwork, mediums, glazing, grounds are thoroughly analyzed as they are gradually encountered during the painting process The second part contains insights into crucial stylistic components which, together, make a Vermeer a Vermeer, such as color, composition, camera obscura vision and perspective.