Jan Vermeer (Johannes Vermeer) Biography

Now one of the most revered of all Dutch painters, Vermeer was born and worked in relative obscurity in Delft. His father was a silk merchant, art dealer, and tavern keeper. In 1653 he married and entered the local artists' guild and by 1655 had taken over his father's businesses. Vermeer left a widow and eleven children. These sparse facts give little indication of the quality and deep meditation of his art. There are only about 35 surviving paintings that are widely considered to be by him. All are of outstanding quality, and although they vary as his style altered they consistently show a profound preoccupation with the ways in which light defines form, and a supremely controlled, meticulous, technique.

Why Vermeer apparently produced so few works, and how he learned to paint, are questions which remain largely unresolved. It is certainly true that the work of Carel Fabritius has affinities with Vermeer's mature style, and he owned three works by this artist, so there may have been a firm association between the two men.

Vermeer's earliest pictures, such as Christ in the House of Martha (Edinburgh, NG Scotland) and Diana and her Companions (The Hague, Mauritshuis), are quite large history paintings which owe a debt to Italianate artists from Utrecht; by contrast the majority of the works of his maturity are small genre works which tend to explore a series of recurring themes, and sometimes have allegorical overtones. These themes include the work of domestic servants (The Milkmaid; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.); music-making (A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman; Royal Coll.); and the writing and receiving of letters (Woman in Blue Reading a Letter; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.). Such pictures are by no means simply a technical tour de force; they seem to explore the human condition and reveal tremulous moments of absolute, unselfconscious, privacy.

Two outdoor scenes by the artist survive (The View of Delft; The Hague, Mauritshuis; The Little Street; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.). And two large allegorical paintings date from the latter part of his career: a view of his studio, called The Art of Painting (Vienna, Kunsthist. Mus.) which seems innately to celebrate the intellectual aspects of his calling, and the Allegory of Faith (New York, Met. Mus.), which through a complex conjunction of symbolism explores Catholic doctrine.

Vermeer's paintings remained almost entirely unappreciated after his death until they were ‘rediscovered’by the French critic Théophile Thoré , whose seminal monograph was published in the Gazette des beaux-arts in 1866 .

Bibliography and More Information about Jan Vermeer (Johannes Vermeer)

• Wheelock, A. K. (ed.), Johannes Vermeer, exhib. cat. 1995 (Washington, NG).

Christopher Baker