Paintings of Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer created luscious canvases of
limited scope: generally women and men in seventeenth-century rooms, but also
occasional outdoor scenes, allegory and religious themes. The fascination lies
with the intricate combination of light, color, proportion and scale that
enhances the moods and reality of the subjects.
Vermeer (1632-1675) lived all his life in Delft. Much of his history is
obscure.
Instructions Each painting has a description and a thumbnail image of
the picture: click on this for a larger version (approx 50k). Clicking on the
word "Large" will return an even larger version (approx 150k). You may wish to
use a second browser window: do something like "File/New Browser...". Then you
can read the text and see the picture at the same time.
Vermeer on the Net
- Tom van Halteran has made a
really excellent and comprehensive site about all aspects of the painter.
Highly recommended!
- A book review of
Vermeer Studies, edited by Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker.
This long-awaited volume contains a large selection of the papers that were
delivered at a symposia in Washington, D.C., in 1995 and The Hague in 1996 in
connection with the Vermeer exhibition held at the National Gallery of Art
and the Mauritshuis respectively.
- Jonathan Janson has made some splendid
paintings in the style of Vermeer.
- There is an excellent and detailed
description of the View of Delft by
Kees en Brenda Kaldenbach, with explanations of the geography, architecture,
and perspective, true and false.
- The True Falsies company in Germany makes a postcard of a modern
parody of Vermeer, called The Girl on the
Phone with a Tape Measure.
- Philip Steadman from the Open University in the UK have produced an excellent paper
on the Camera Obscura, showing from careful perspective analysis that it
was almost certainly used.
- There is a fine scholarly
Vermeer page (in French) written by René Berger and his colleagues at
EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.
- Max Ule from New York has an
excellent online collection of bootleg photographs of the 1996
exhibition at the Mauritshuis, which he took with a camera hidden under a
cowboy hat. There is also a picture of a "Girl in the Red Hat
Patisserie", but how can one in conscience eat such a thing?
- There are many paintings by many artists virtually exhibited at the WebMuseum in France, including
some information about Vermeer.
- Rob Coers in Delft has a page devoted to Vermeer's life there.
- Some pages about the master forger of Vermeer, Han van Meegeren, are
available from
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