Jan Vermeer
Biography and Paintings of Dutch Realist Baroque Artist
Visual Arts Guide

Jan Vermeer (1632-1675)

The Baroque painter and the leader of the Dutch Realist School, Jan (or Johannes) Vermeer specialised in interior genre painting, portrait art and urban landscape. He was a moderately successful regional painter while alive, but after his death his work was largely forgotten about. That was, until 200 years later when the art critic Thore Burger published an essay in 1866 acknowledging him as one of the greatest Old Masters of the Dutch Golden Age. As Vermeer worked so slowly, he only produced about 35 paintings in his lifetime. His best known works include Girl with a Pearl Earring, c.1665 (Mauritshuis, The Hague), Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window, (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) and View of Delft, 1660-61 (Mauritshuis, The Hague).

Little is known of Vermeer's early life, but he was born in 1632 in Delft, Netherlands, to a lower-middle class family. His father was a silk weaver and art dealer who later also became an innkeeper. When his father died, Jan inherited the inn and art sales business, which helped to supplement his career in fine art painting. His early apprenticeship years are vague, but it is thought that he may have studied with the Dutch artists Leonaert Bramer (who painted nocturnal scenes and frescoes) and/or Carel Fabritius. Other possible influences were Dirck van Baburen and Hendrick Terbrugghen (leading members of a group of Dutch artists who were influenced by Caravaggio, the so-called Utrecht Caravaggism group).

It is difficult to give a chronological description of Vermeer's paintings, as he only dated three. These are The Procuress, 1656 (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), The Astronomer, 1668 (private collection) and The Geographer, 1669 (Städelsches, Frankfurt).

His early works tended to be larger in scale and brighter in palette. As he matured, his paintings became smaller and his palette cooler, dominated more by yellows, grays and blues. Other works include The Milkmaid, c.1658 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), Woman with a Water Jug, c.1660 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Girl Interrupted at her Music, c.1660 (Frick Collection, New York), The Music Lesson or A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman, c.1662-65 (Queen's Gallery, London), Woman with a Lute near a Window, c.1663 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), A Lady Writing a Letter, c.1665 (National Gallery of Art, Washington), Girl with a Red Hat, 1668 (National Gallery of Art, Washington), The Love Letter, c.1669 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and Lady writing a Letter with her Maid, 1670 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin).

Vermeer is particularly renowned for his treatment of light which takes on an almost pearly veneer. He achieved this by a method called pointillé, which involves using layers of granular paint to give a transparent end effect. We are not sure how Vermeer prepared for his paintings, as no pre-drawings exist, but it is thought he may have used a camera obsura to achieve positioning in his compositions. This was an early imaging device, and when a composition was viewed through the lens, it would cast a subdued light over the subject, rather like the lighting achieved in Vermeer's paintings. These light effects are known as halation. When it came to colour, unlike many of his contemporaries, Vermeer liberally used ultramarine, which was created from the incredibly expensive pigment lapis lazuli. This can best be seen in the turban of his famous painting The Girl with a Pearl Earring.

In 1653 Vermeer became of member of the Guild of Saint Luke, a local trade association for painters, which demonstrated respect among his peers. The guild records indicate that he did not initially pay his joining fee, which suggests that he had financial difficulties. Vermeer died in 1675, he was only about 43 at the time. Had he lived longer, the world would not have been denied the opportunity to see how this master's works would have matured. As it is, Vermeer is considered one of the Netherlands most famous artists and, due to his small output, his works are among the most valuable in the history of art.

...For details of the greatest painter and sculptor of the High Renaissance in Florence and Rome, see Michelangelo.

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