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A LL any one knows about the life of one of the very great painters of the world can be written in a few sentences. Most great painters have had whole books written about their lives, but there isn’t enough really known about the life of the Dutchman Jan Vermeer (Ver-mair’) of Delft to make even a few pages. Here is almost all we know about him:
Jan Vermeer was born in Delft in 1632 and died there in 1675, leaving a widow and eight children. There it is in one sentence — the life of Vermeer of Delft. Nobody even knows how many pictures there are that he painted, for some pictures we think he painted may have been painted by some one else.
But the pictures that we are sure were painted by him are considered very wonderful. Most of these are of indoor scenes. Only one, as far as we know, is a landscape. Most of these paintings show a woman doing some very usual thing,like reading a letter or sewing or playing the clavichord or sometimes just looking out of the window. Perhaps his wife or one of his daughters posed for Vermeer’s pictures. In some pictures there are two women and in a few there are men. In most cases the person in the picture is shown near a window.
The wonderful way Vermeer could paint light coming into a room through a window is one of the first things people notice about these paintings. Next, one notices how well Vermeer could show what material a thing is made of — its texture. The lace cuff, the silk dress, the wooden chair, the silver pitcher, the ripe fruit, the shiny drinking glass, the pearl necklace, the blue china plate, are done so well that no one could doubt what each is made of. One could almost tell how each object feels to the touch. And over all streams the daylight from the window, binding the parts of the picture together. Some people say it is the finest daylight that any painter has ever put into an indoor scene. Certainly Vermeer was able to paint as few men could.
Here is one of Vermeer’s pictures. It is called “The Letter.”It is merely a woman reading a letter by a window, but it is painted so well that it has become famous.
NO.19 THE LETTER
Vermeer did not seem to have any imagination. He painted only what he saw. He never, for instance, made his women prettier than they really were. I don’t believe he could have painted a dragon, or Saint George either, without looking at a real dragon (as if there were such a thing!) or at Saint George himself.
Why is so little known about so fine a painter? It seems mysterious, doesn’t it? Vermeer’s pictures were liked at the time they were painted, but then for some reason they were almost forgotten for about two hundred years. No one took the trouble to write down anything about the artist. Then his pictures were “discovered” again and became so valuable that it took a great deal of money to buy one. Most of Vermeer’s paintings are now kept very carefully in museums.
This chapter is far too short for so important a painter. But there aren’t any stories to tell about him unless I just make them up. Vermeer didn’t use his imagination in painting his pictures, and I’m not going to use mine in telling you madeup stories. We’ll just have to let Vermeer’s pictures speak for him.