Initiation:
Johannes
Vermeer
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Born
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Died
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15 December 1675 (aged 43)
Delft, Dutch Republic |
Nationality
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Education
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Known for
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Notable work
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Movement
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Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer (/vərˈmɪər/;[3] Dutch: [joːˈɦɑnəs jɑn vərˈmeːr]; 1632 – December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior
scenes of middle-class life. Vermeer was a moderately
successful PROVINCIAL genre painter in his lifetime. He seems never to
have been particularly wealthy, leaving his wife and children in DEBT at his death, perhaps because he
produced relatively few paintings.[4]
Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes.
"Almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his
house in Delft; they show the same furniture and decorations in various ARRANGEMENTS and they often portray the same
people, mostly women."[6]
Recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, his modest celebrity gave way to
obscurity after his death; he was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbraken's major source BOOK on 17th-century Dutch painting (Grand
Theatre of Dutch Painters and Women Artists), and was thus omitted from
subsequent SURVEYS of Dutch art for nearly two
centuries.[7][8] In the 19th century, Vermeer was
rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile
Thoré-Bürger, who published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him,
although only 34 paintings are universally attributed to him today.[2] Since that time, Vermeer's reputation
has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age.
Contents
Life[edit]
A row of houses on the market in Delft, with the inn Mechelen, but made circa 1730
by Leonard Schenk after a drawing by Abraham Rademaker
For a long time, relatively little was known about
Vermeer's life.[9] He seems to have been devoted
exclusively to his art, living out his life in the city of Delft. Until the
19th century, the only sources of information were some registers, a few
official documents and comments by other artists; for this reason, Thoré-Bürger
named him "The Sphinx of Delft".[10] John Michael Montias added details on the family from the
city archives of Delft, in his Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic
Study of the Seventeenth Century (1982).
Youth[edit]
On 31 October 1632, Johannes was baptized in the Reformed Church.[11][12][Note 1]His father, Reijnier Janszoon, was a
middle-class worker of silk or caffa (a mixture of silk and
cotton or wool).[Note 2] As an apprentice in Amsterdam,
Reijnier lived on FASHIONABLE Sint
Antoniesbreestraat, then a street with many resident painters. In
1615, he married Digna Baltus. The couple moved to Delft and had a daughter,
Geertruy, who was baptized in 1620.[Note 3] In 1625, Reijnier was involved in a
fight with a soldier named Willem van Bylandt, who died from his wounds FIVE months later.[13] Around this time, Reijnier began
dealing in paintings. In 1631, he leased an inn, which he called "The
Flying Fox". In 1635, he lived on Voldersgracht 25 or 26. In 1641, he
bought a larger inn on the market square, named after the Flemish town "Mechelen". The acquisition of the inn
constituted a considerableFINANCIAL burden.[Huerta 1] When Vermeer's father died in October
1652, Vermeer assumed operation of the family's art business.
Marriage and
family[edit]
The Jesuit Church on the Oude Langendijk in
Delft, 1700–1725,
brush in gray ink, 13.2 × 20.2 cm, Delft, Archief Delft
In April 1653, Johannes Reijniersz Vermeer married a Catholic girl, Catharina Bolenes (Bolnes). The
blessing took place in a quiet nearby village, Schipluiden. For the groom, it was a good
match. His mother-in-law, Maria Thins, was significantly wealthier than
he, and it was probably she who insisted Vermeer convert to Catholicism before
the marriage on 5 April.[Note 4] According toTHE ART historian Walter Liedtke, Vermeer's conversion seems to have
been made with conviction.[14]One of his paintings, The Allegory of Faith,[15] made between 1670 and 1672, placed
less emphasis on the artists’ usual naturalistic concerns, and more on
religious symbolic applications, including the sacrament of the Eucharist. Walter Liedtke inDutch Paintings
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art suggests it was made for a learned
and devout Catholic PATRON, perhaps for his schuilkerk, or "hidden church".[Liedtke 1] At some point, the couple moved in
with Catharina's mother, who lived in a rather spacious house at Oude
Langendijk, almost next to a hidden Jesuit church.[Note 5] Here Vermeer lived for the rest of
his life, producing paintings in the front room on the second floor. His wife
gave birth to 15 children, four of whom were buried before being baptized, but
were registered as CHILD of Johan Vermeer".[Montias 1] From wills written by relatives, the
names of 10 of Vermeer's children are known: Maria, Elisabeth, Cornelia,
Aleydis, Beatrix, Johannes, Gertruyd, Franciscus, Catharina, and Ignatius.[Montias 2] Several of these names carry a
religious connotation, and the youngest, Ignatius, likely was named after the founder of the Jesuit order.[Note 6][Note 7]
Career[edit]
Replica of the St. Luke Guildhouse on Voldersgracht in
Delft
