84-453: The Music Lesson , Woman Seated at a Virginal or A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman by Johannes Vermeer is a painting of a young female pupil receiving a music lesson from a man. The man's mouth is slightly agape giving the impression that he is singing along with the music that the young girl is playing. This suggests that there is a relationship between the two figures and
168-598: A Google Doodle on 12 November 2021. A 2023 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam featured 28 of Vermeer's works, the most ever shown together. More than 650,000 people visited the exhibition, making it the museum's most visited exhibition. Coinciding with the exhibition, the documentary film Close to Vermeer was released the same year. The film followed curators Gregor J. M. Weber and Pieter Roelofs as they sought loans of Vermeer's artwork from museums around
252-465: A cave at Twin Rivers, near Lusaka , Zambia . Ochre , iron oxide, was the first color of paint. A favored blue pigment was derived from lapis lazuli . Pigments based on minerals and clays often bear the name of the city or region where they were originally mined. Raw sienna and burnt sienna came from Siena , Italy , while raw umber and burnt umber came from Umbria . These pigments were among
336-470: A frenzy , in a day and a half he went from being healthy to being dead. Catharina describes how the collapse of the art market had damaged Vermeer's business as both a painter and an art dealer. She had to raise 11 children and therefore asked the High Court to relieve her of debts owed to Vermeer's creditors. Pioneering Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek , who worked for the city council as
420-518: A mercury sulfide , was originally made by grinding a powder of natural cinnabar . From the 17th century on, it was also synthesized from the elements. It was favored by old masters such as Titian . Indian yellow was once produced by collecting the urine of cattle that had been fed only mango leaves. Dutch and Flemish painters of the 17th and 18th centuries favored it for its luminescent qualities, and often used it to represent sunlight . Since mango leaves are nutritionally inadequate for cattle,
504-523: A surveyor , was appointed trustee . The house had eight rooms on the first floor, the contents of which were listed in an inventory taken a few months after Vermeer's death. In his studio , there were two chairs, two painter's easels, three palettes, 10 canvases, a desk, an oak pull table, a small wooden cupboard with drawers, and "rummage not worthy being itemized". Nineteen of Vermeer's paintings were bequeathed to Catharina and her mother. The widow sold two more paintings to Hendrick van Buyten to pay off
588-576: A black pigment since prehistoric times. The first known synthetic pigment was Egyptian blue , which is first attested on an alabaster bowl in Egypt dated to Naqada III ( circa 3250 BC). Egyptian blue (blue frit), calcium copper silicate CaCuSi 4 O 10 , made by heating a mixture of quartz sand, lime , a flux and a copper source, such as malachite . Already invented in the Predynastic Period of Egypt , its use became widespread by
672-718: A certain hardening of manner and are generally thought to represent his late works. From this period come The Allegory of Faith (c. 1670; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and The Love Letter (c. 1670; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Originally, Vermeer's works were largely overlooked by art historians for two centuries after his death. A select number of connoisseurs in the Netherlands did appreciate his work, yet even so, many of his works were attributed to then better-known artists such as Metsu or Mieris . The Delft master's modern rediscovery began about 1860, when German museum director Gustav Waagen saw The Art of Painting in
756-410: A computer display. The appearance of a pigment may depend on the brand and even the batch. Furthermore, pigments have inherently complex reflectance spectra that will render their color appearance greatly different depending on the spectrum of the source illumination , a property called metamerism . Averaged measurements of pigment samples will only yield approximations of their true appearance under
840-494: A considerable financial burden. When Reijnier died in October 1652, Vermeer took over the operation of the family's art business. In April 1653, Johannes Reijniersz Vermeer married a Catholic woman, Catharina Bolnes (Bolenes). The blessing took place in the quiet nearby village of Schipluiden . Vermeer's new mother-in-law, Maria Thins , was initially opposed to the marriage as she was significantly wealthier than he, and it
924-468: A copy of it), which appears in the background of two of Vermeer's paintings. The same subject was also painted by Vermeer. Almost all of Vermeer's paintings are of contemporary subjects in a smaller format, with a cooler palette dominated by blues, yellows, and grays. Vermeer painted multiple artworks portraying a pure profile like the painting Woman with a Pearl Necklace , which was uncommon in Dutch art at
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#17327866678111008-553: A friend, but his style of painting is rather different from Vermeer's. Liedtke suggests that Vermeer taught himself using information from one of his father's connections. Some scholars think that Vermeer was trained under Catholic painter Abraham Bloemaert . Vermeer's style is similar to that of some of the Utrecht Caravaggists , whose works are depicted as paintings-within-paintings in the backgrounds of several of his compositions. On 29 December 1653, Vermeer became
1092-494: A hidden Jesuit church. There 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". The names of 10 of Vermeer's children are known from wills written by relatives: Maertge, Elisabeth, Cornelia, Aleydis, Beatrix, Johannes, Gertruyd, Franciscus, Catharina, and Ignatius. Most of these names are those of saints ;
1176-527: A member of the Guild of Saint Luke , a trade association for painters. The guild's records make clear that Vermeer did not pay the usual admission fee. It was a year of plague , war , and economic crisis; Vermeer was not alone in experiencing difficult financial circumstances. In 1654, a terrible explosion, known as the Delft Thunderclap , occurred at a gunpowder store and destroyed a large section of
1260-409: A slightly more greenish or reddish blue. The following are some of the attributes of pigments that determine their suitability for particular manufacturing processes and applications: Swatches are used to communicate colors accurately. The types of swatches are dictated by the media, i.e., printing, computers, plastics, and textiles. Generally, the medium that offers the broadest gamut of color shades
1344-804: A source of debate, given their almost photorealistic attention to detail, despite Vermeer's having had no formal training and despite only limited evidence that Vermeer had created any preparatory sketches or traces for his paintings. In 2001, British artist David Hockney published the book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters , in which he argued that Vermeer (among other Renaissance and Baroque artists including Hans Holbein and Diego Velázquez ) used optics to achieve precise positioning in their compositions, and specifically some combination of curved mirrors , camera obscura , and camera lucida . This became known as
1428-403: A specific source of illumination. Computer display systems use a technique called chromatic adaptation transforms to emulate the correlated color temperature of illumination sources, and cannot perfectly reproduce the intricate spectral combinations originally seen. In many cases, the perceived color of a pigment falls outside of the gamut of computer displays and a method called gamut mapping
1512-668: A substantial debt. Vermeer had been a respected artist in Delft, but he was almost unknown outside his hometown. A local patron named Pieter van Ruijven had purchased much of his output, which kept Vermeer afloat financially but reduced the possibility of his fame spreading. Several factors contributed to his limited body of work. Vermeer never had any pupils, though one scholar has suggested that Vermeer taught his eldest daughter Maria to paint. Additionally, his family obligations with so many children may have taken up much of his time, as would acting as both an art dealer and inn-keeper in running
1596-433: A synthetic form of lapis lazuli . Ultramarine was manufactured by treating aluminium silicate with sulfur . Various forms of cobalt blue and Cerulean blue were also introduced. In the early 20th century, Phthalo Blue , a synthetic metallo-organic pigment was prepared. At the same time, Royal Blue , another name once given to tints produced from lapis lazuli, has evolved to signify a much lighter and brighter color, and
1680-513: A trademark. Colour Index International resolves all these conflicting historic, generic, and proprietary names so that manufacturers and consumers can identify the pigment (or dye) used in a particular color product. In the CII, all phthalocyanine blue pigments are designated by a generic color index number as either PB15 or PB16, short for pigment blue 15 and pigment blue 16; these two numbers reflect slight variations in molecular structure, which produce
1764-621: A work, beneath subsequent earth colours such as umber and ochre , to subtly tint their shade. This working method most probably was inspired by Vermeer's understanding of Leonardo's observations that the surface of every object partakes of the colour of the adjacent object. An example of Vermeer using ultramarine as an underpaint is in The Girl with the Wine Glass . The shadows of the red satin dress are underpainted in natural ultramarine, and, owing to this underlying blue paint layer,
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#17327866678111848-531: A year on order. Balthasar de Monconys visited him in 1663 to see some of his work, but Vermeer had no paintings to show. The diplomat and the two French clergymen who accompanied him were sent to Hendrick van Buyten , a baker who had a couple of Vermeer's paintings as collateral. In 1671, Gerrit van Uylenburgh organized the auction of Gerrit Reynst 's collection and offered 13 paintings and some sculptures to Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg . Frederick accused them of being counterfeits and sent 12 back on
1932-458: Is a mature work of Vermeer and his handling of color and his choice of painting materials is but one of the aspects proving his mastery. The painting is dominated by dark areas such as the bluish-black floor painted in bone black with the addition of natural ultramarine . The 2013 documentary film Tim's Vermeer documents inventor and entrepreneur Tim Jenison 's attempt to recreate The Music Lesson to test his theory that Vermeer painted with
2016-427: Is believed Vermeer produced a total of fewer than 50 paintings, of which 34 have survived. Only three Vermeer paintings were dated by the artist: The Procuress (1656; Gemäldegalerie, Dresden); The Astronomer (1668; Musée du Louvre, Paris); and The Geographer (1669; Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt). Vermeer's mother-in-law, Maria Thins, owned Dirck van Baburen 's 1622 oil on canvas The Procuress (or
2100-733: Is depicted in Charles Wild's Windsor Castle: the King's Closet, 1816 , a watercolour prepared for William Pyne's History of the Royal Residences . The painting was investigated by Hermann Kühn in 1968 and there is also material on the pigment analysis on the website of the National Gallery in London where the painting was included in the exhibition "Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure" in 2013. The Music Lesson
2184-407: Is difficult to replicate on a computer display . Approximations are required. The Munsell Color System provides an objective measure of color in three dimensions: hue, value (or lightness), and chroma. Computer displays in general fail to show the true chroma of many pigments, but the hue and lightness can be reproduced with relative accuracy. However, when the gamma of a computer display deviates from
2268-536: Is used to approximate the true appearance. Gamut mapping trades off any one of lightness , hue , or saturation accuracy to render the color on screen, depending on the priority chosen in the conversion's ICC rendering intent . In biology , a pigment is any colored material of plant or animal cells. Many biological structures, such as skin , eyes , fur , and hair contain pigments (such as melanin ). Animal skin coloration often comes about through specialized cells called chromatophores , which animals such as
2352-433: Is usually mixed from Phthalo Blue and titanium dioxide , or from inexpensive synthetic blue dyes. The discovery in 1856 of mauveine , the first aniline dyes , was a forerunner for the development of hundreds of synthetic dyes and pigments like azo and diazo compounds. These dyes ushered in the flourishing of organic chemistry, including systematic designs of colorants. The development of organic chemistry diminished
2436-417: Is widely used across diverse media. Reference standards are provided by printed swatches of color shades. PANTONE , RAL , Munsell , etc. are widely used standards of color communication across diverse media like printing, plastics, and textiles . Companies manufacturing color masterbatches and pigments for plastics offer plastic swatches in injection molded color chips. These color chips are supplied to
2520-608: The 4th Dynasty . It was the blue pigment par excellence of Roman antiquity ; its art technological traces vanished in the course of the Middle Ages until its rediscovery in the context of the Egyptian campaign and the excavations in Pompeii and Herculaneum . Later premodern synthetic pigments include white lead (basic lead carbonate, (PbCO 3 ) 2 Pb(OH) 2 ), vermilion , verdigris , and lead-tin yellow . Vermilion,
2604-708: The Colour Index International (CII) as a standard for identifying the pigments that they use in manufacturing particular colors. First published in 1925—and now published jointly on the web by the Society of Dyers and Colourists ( United Kingdom ) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (US)—this index is recognized internationally as the authoritative reference on colorants. It encompasses more than 27,000 products under more than 13,000 generic color index names. In
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2688-633: The Hockney–Falco thesis , named after Hockney and Charles M. Falco , another proponent of the theory. Philip Steadman published the book Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth behind the Masterpieces in 2001, in which Steadman specifically claimed that Vermeer had used a camera obscura to create his paintings. Steadman noted that many of Vermeer's paintings had been painted in the same room, and he found six of Vermeer's paintings that would be precisely
2772-625: The Munsell color system became the foundation for a series of color models, providing objective methods for the measurement of color. The Munsell system describes a color in three dimensions, hue , value (lightness), and chroma (color purity), where chroma is the difference from gray at a given hue and value. By the middle 20th century, standardized methods for pigment chemistry were available, part of an international movement to create such standards in industry. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) develops technical standards for
2856-554: The Royal Collection of Great Britain since 1762, when King George III bought Smith's collection of paintings. When the painting was acquired it was believed to be a work by Frans van Mieris the elder because of a misinterpretation of the signature. It was not correctly attributed to Vermeer until 1866 by Théophile Thoré , though some scholars were skeptical whether it was Vermeer or not. It has at various times been kept at both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle , and
2940-612: The octopus and chameleon can control to vary the animal's color. Many conditions affect the levels or nature of pigments in plant, animal, some protista , or fungus cells. For instance, the disorder called albinism affects the level of melanin production in animals. Pigmentation in organisms serves many biological purposes, including camouflage , mimicry , aposematism (warning), sexual selection and other forms of signalling , photosynthesis (in plants), and basic physical purposes such as protection from sunburn . Pigment color differs from structural color in that pigment color
3024-533: The red lake and vermilion mixture applied over it acquires a slightly purple, cool and crisp appearance. Even after Vermeer's evident financial breakdown following the so-called rampjaar (year of disaster) in 1672, he continued to employ natural ultramarine generously, such as in Lady Seated at a Virginal . This could suggest that Vermeer was supplied with materials by a collector and would coincide with John Michael Montias ' theory that Pieter van Ruijven
3108-475: The CII schema, each pigment has a generic index number that identifies it chemically, regardless of proprietary and historic names. For example, Phthalocyanine Blue BN has been known by a variety of generic and proprietary names since its discovery in the 1930s. In much of Europe, phthalocyanine blue is better known as Helio Blue, or by a proprietary name such as Winsor Blue. An American paint manufacturer, Grumbacher, registered an alternate spelling (Thanos Blue) as
3192-615: The Czernin gallery in Vienna and recognized the work as a Vermeer, though it was attributed to Pieter de Hooch at that time. Research by Théophile Thoré-Bürger culminated in the publication of his catalogue raisonné of Vermeer's works in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1866. Thoré-Bürger's catalogue drew international attention to Vermeer and listed more than 70 works by him, including many that Thoré-Bürger regarded as uncertain. Upon
3276-678: The Nazis, specifically in selling what had been believed to be original artwork to the Nazis. On the evening of 23 September 1971, a 21-year-old hotel waiter, Mario Pierre Roymans, stole Vermeer's Love Letter from the Fine Arts Palace in Brussels, where it was on loan from the Rijksmuseum for the exhibition Rembrandt and his Age . To mark the 26th anniversary of the opening of an exhibition at Washington, DC's National Gallery of Art featuring Vermeer's work, Google honored Vermeer with
3360-591: The Seventeenth Century (1982). Johannes Vermeer was baptized within the Reformed Church on 31 October 1632. His mother, Digna Baltens ( c. 1596 –1670), was from Antwerp . Digna's father, Balthasar Geerts, or Gerrits (born in Antwerp in or around 1573), led an enterprising life in metalworking, and was arrested for counterfeiting. Vermeer's father, named Reijnier Janszoon,
3444-418: The absolute brightness of a scene. Another was the addition of several highlights and outlines consistent with matching the effects of chromatic aberration , particularly noticeable in primitive optics. Last, and perhaps most telling, is a noticeable curvature in the original painting's rendition of the scrollwork on the virginal . This effect matched Jenison's technique precisely, caused by exactly duplicating
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3528-529: The advice of Hendrick Fromantiou . Van Uylenburg then organized a counter-assessment, asking a total of 35 painters to pronounce on their authenticity, including Jan Lievens , Melchior de Hondecoeter , Gerbrand van den Eeckhout , and Johannes Vermeer. In 1672, a severe economic downturn known as the Rampjaar struck the Dutch Republic, after French troops led by Louis XIV invaded the country from
3612-401: The art of the fijnschilders from Leiden. Vermeer was responding to the market of Gerard Dou 's paintings, who sold his paintings for exorbitant prices. Dou may have influenced Pieter de Hooch and Gabriel Metsu too. Vermeer also charged higher than average prices for his work, most of which were purchased by an unknown collector. The influence of Johannes Vermeer on Metsu is unmistakable:
3696-645: The artists' usual naturalistic concerns and more on symbolic religious applications, including the sacrament of the Eucharist . Walter Liedtke, in Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , suggests that it was made for a learned and devout Catholic patron, perhaps for his schuilkerk , or "hidden church". At some point, the couple moved in with Catharina's mother, who lived in a rather spacious house at Oude Langendijk, almost next to
3780-464: The city. Pieter van Ruijven and his wife, Maria de Knuijt , were Vermeer's patrons for the better part of the artist's career. In 2023, Maria de Knuijt was identified by the curators of the 2023 exhibition of Vermeer's works at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as the main patron because of her long-standing and supportive relationship with the artist. It seems that Vermeer turned for inspiration to
3864-411: The dependence on inorganic pigments. Before the development of synthetic pigments, and the refinement of techniques for extracting mineral pigments, batches of color were often inconsistent. With the development of a modern color industry, manufacturers and professionals have cooperated to create international standards for identifying, producing, measuring, and testing colors. First published in 1905,
3948-441: The designer or customer to choose and select the color for their specific plastic products. Plastic swatches are available in various special effects like pearl, metallic, fluorescent, sparkle, mosaic etc. However, these effects are difficult to replicate on other media like print and computer display. Plastic swatches have been created by 3D modelling to including various special effects. The appearance of pigments in natural light
4032-399: The easiest to synthesize, and chemists created modern colors based on the originals. These were more consistent than colors mined from the original ore bodies, but the place names remained. Also found in many Paleolithic and Neolithic cave paintings are Red Ochre, anhydrous Fe 2 O 3 , and the hydrated Yellow Ochre (Fe 2 O 3 H 2 O). Charcoal—or carbon black—has also been used as
4116-418: The estimated value of the pigment industry globally is $ 30 billion. The value of titanium dioxide – used to enhance the white brightness of many products – was placed at $ 13.2 billion per year, while the color Ferrari red is valued at $ 300 million each year. Like all materials, the color of pigments arises because they absorb only certain wavelengths of visible light . The bonding properties of
4200-426: The family businesses. His time spent serving as head of the guild and his extraordinary precision as a painter may have also limited his output. Vermeer may have first executed his paintings tonally like most painters of his time, using either monochrome shades of grey (" grisaille ") or a limited palette of browns and greys ("dead coloring"), over which he would apply more saturated colors (reds, yellows, and blues) in
4284-904: The famous painting and his relationship with the equally fictional model. Many artists are inspired by the famous painter. For example, culinary photographer Aimee Twigger draws on Vermeer's chiaroscuro for her gustatory journeys through recipes. Pigments A pigment is a powder used to add color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly insoluble and chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored substances which are soluble or go into solution at some stage in their use. Dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic . Pigments of prehistoric and historic value include ochre , charcoal , and lapis lazuli . In 2006, around 7.4 million tons of inorganic , organic , and special pigments were marketed worldwide. According to an April 2018 report by Bloomberg Businessweek ,
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#17327866678114368-438: The form of transparent glazes. No drawings have been positively attributed to Vermeer, and his paintings offer few clues to preparatory methods. There is no other 17th-century artist who employed the exorbitantly expensive pigment ultramarine (derived from natural lapis lazuli ) either so lavishly or so early in his career. Vermeer used this pigment in not just elements that are naturally of this colour; he also used it early in
4452-529: The help of optical devices. Jenison is given the opportunity for a brief private viewing of the painting at Buckingham Palace. The film's claim that Vermeer used something similar to Jenison's technique has been controversial and was derided by the art critic Jonathan Jones . Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( / v ər ˈ m ɪər , v ər ˈ m ɛər / vər- MEER , vər- MAIR , Dutch: [joːˈɦɑnəs fərˈmeːr] ; see below ; also known as Jan Vermeer ; October 1632 – 15 December 1675)
4536-421: The idea of love and music being bridged together. This was a common theme among Netherlandish art in this time period. Vermeer consistently used the same objects within his paintings such as the draped rug, the white water jug, various instruments, tiled floor and windows that convey light and shadows. This is one of few paintings produced by Vermeer which were kept in his home until his death in 1675 when his family
4620-480: The light from the left, the marble floor. (Adriaan Waiboer, however, suggests that Metsu requires more emotional involvement of the viewer.) Vermeer probably competed also with Nicolaes Maes , who produced genre works in a similar style. In 1662, Vermeer was elected head of the guild and was reelected in 1663, 1670, and 1671, evidence that he (like Bramer) was considered an established craftsman among his peers. Vermeer worked slowly, probably producing three paintings
4704-497: The manufacture of pigments and dyes. ISO standards define various industrial and chemical properties, and how to test for them. The principal ISO standards that relate to all pigments are as follows: Other ISO standards pertain to particular classes or categories of pigments, based on their chemical composition, such as ultramarine pigments, titanium dioxide , iron oxide pigments, and so forth. Many manufacturers of paints, inks, textiles, plastics, and colors have voluntarily adopted
4788-570: The material determine the wavelength and efficiency of light absorption. Light of other wavelengths are reflected or scattered. The reflected light spectrum defines the color that we observe. The appearance of pigments is sensitive to the source light. Sunlight has a high color temperature and a fairly uniform spectrum. Sunlight is considered a standard for white light. Artificial light sources are less uniform. Color spaces used to represent colors numerically must specify their light source. Lab color measurements, unless otherwise noted, assume that
4872-559: The measurement was recorded under a D65 light source, or "Daylight 6500 K", which is roughly the color temperature of sunlight. Other properties of a color, such as its saturation or lightness, may be determined by the other substances that accompany pigments. Binders and fillers can affect the color. Minerals have been used as colorants since prehistoric times. Early humans used paint for aesthetic purposes such as body decoration. Pigments and paint grinding equipment believed to be between 350,000 and 400,000 years old have been reported in
4956-548: The original against a rhinoceros in some surrealist experiments. Dali also celebrated the master in The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table , 1934. Han van Meegeren was a 20th-century Dutch painter who worked in the classical tradition. He became a master forger, motivated by a blend of aesthetic and financial reasons, creating and selling many new "Vermeers" before turning himself in for forgery to avoid being charged with capital treason for collaboration with
5040-459: The practice of harvesting Indian yellow was eventually declared to be inhumane. Modern hues of Indian yellow are made from synthetic pigments. Vermillion has been partially replaced in by cadmium reds. Because of the cost of lapis lazuli , substitutes were often used. Prussian blue , the oldest modern synthetic pigment, was discovered by accident in 1704. By the early 19th century, synthetic and metallic blue pigments included French ultramarine ,
5124-451: The preceding voiceless /s/ as [f] . The usual English pronunciation is / v ər ˈ m ɪər / vər- MEER , with / v ɜːr ˈ m ɪər / vur- MEER , with a long first vowel, occurring in the UK. / v ər ˈ m ɛər / vər- MAIR is also documented. Another pronunciation, / v ɛər ˈ m ɪər / vair- MAIR , is attested from the UK. Relatively little
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#17327866678115208-441: The rediscovery of Vermeer's work, several prominent Dutch artists modelled their style on his work, including Simon Duiker . Other artists who were inspired by Vermeer include Danish painter Wilhelm Hammershoi and American Thomas Wilmer Dewing . In the 20th century, Vermeer's admirers included Salvador Dalí , who painted his own version of The Lacemaker (on commission from collector Robert Lehman ) and pitted large copies of
5292-433: The reference value, the hue is also systematically biased. The following approximations assume a display device at gamma 2.2, using the sRGB color space . The further a display device deviates from these standards, the less accurate these swatches will be. Swatches are based on the average measurements of several lots of single-pigment watercolor paints, converted from Lab color space to sRGB color space for viewing on
5376-458: The right size if they had been painted from inside a camera obscura in the room's back wall. Supporters of these theories have pointed to evidence in some of Vermeer's paintings, such as the often-discussed sparkling pearly highlights in Vermeer's paintings, which they argue are the result of the primitive lens of a camera obscura producing halation . It was also postulated that a camera obscura
5460-478: The same people, mostly women." The modest celebrity he enjoyed during his life 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 , published 1718) and, as a result, was omitted from subsequent surveys of Dutch art for nearly two centuries. In the 19th century, Vermeer
5544-465: The south during the Franco-Dutch War . At the same time, troops from Münster and Cologne invaded the country from the east, causing more destruction. Many people panicked; courts, theaters, shops and schools were closed. Vermeer's sale of a painting that year was his last. Five years passed before circumstances improved. In 1674, Vermeer was listed as a member of the civic guards . In
5628-458: The stress of financial pressures, and described his death as follows: ... during the ruinous war with France he not only was unable to sell any of his art but also, to his great detriment, was left sitting with the paintings of other masters that he was dealing in. As a result and owing to the great burden of his children having no means of his own, he lapsed into such decay and decadence, which he had so taken to heart that, as if he had fallen into
5712-502: The summer of 1675, Vermeer borrowed 1,000 guilders in Amsterdam from Jacob Romboutsz (grandfather of Hendrick Sorgh ), an Amsterdam silk trader, using his mother-in-law's property as a surety . On 15 December 1675, Vermeer died after a short illness. He was 43 years old. He was buried in the Protestant Old Church on 15 December 1675. In a petition to her creditors, Catharina Bolnes attributed her husband's death to
5796-578: The theory to simply involve a concave mirror and a comparator mirror. He spent the next five years testing his theory by re-creating The Music Lesson himself using these tools, a process captured in the 2013 documentary film Tim's Vermeer . Several points were brought out by Jenison in support of this technique. First was Vermeer's hyper-accurate rendition of light falloff along the wall. Neurobiologist Colin Blakemore , in an interview with Jenison, notes that human vision cannot process information about
5880-612: The time. Practically all of his surviving works belong to this period, usually domestic interiors with one or two figures lit by a window on the left. They are characterized by a sense of compositional balance and spatial order, unified by a pearly light. Mundane domestic or recreational activities are imbued with a poetic timelessness (e.g., Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window , Dresden, Gemäldegalerie). Vermeer's two townscapes have also been attributed to this period: View of Delft (The Hague, Mauritshuis) and The Little Street (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). A few of his paintings show
5964-406: The view as seen from a curved mirror. This theory remains disputed. There is no historical evidence regarding Vermeer's interest in optics, and the detailed inventory of the artist's belongings drawn up after his death includes no camera obscura or any similar device. However, Vermeer was in close connection with pioneer lens maker Antonie van Leeuwenhoek , who was his executor after death. It
6048-512: The world. Also released in 2023 was another movie about the exhibition at the Rijkmuseum: Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition . (External links to both movies are below.) Vermeer's reputation and works have been featured in both literature and in films. Tracy Chevalier 's novel Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999) and the 2003 film of the same name present a fictional account of Vermeer's creation of
6132-468: The youngest (Ignatius) was likely named after the Ignatius of Loyola . It is unclear where and with whom Vermeer apprenticed as a painter. There is some speculation that Carel Fabritius may have been his teacher, based upon a controversial interpretation of a text written in 1668 by printer Arnold Bon. Art historians have found no hard evidence to support this. Local authority Leonaert Bramer acted as
6216-830: Was Vermeer's choice of pigments. He is best known for his frequent use of the very expensive ultramarine ( The Milkmaid ) and also lead-tin-yellow ( A Lady Writing a Letter ), madder lake ( Christ in the House of Martha and Mary ), and vermilion . He also painted with ochres , bone black and azurite . The claim that he used Indian yellow in Woman Holding a Balance has been disproven by pigment analysis. In Vermeer's oeuvre, only about 20 pigments have been detected. Of these, seven principal pigments that Vermeer commonly employed are lead white, yellow ochre, vermilion, madder lake, green earth, raw umber, and ivory or bone black. Vermeer's painting techniques have long been
6300-514: Was Vermeer's patron. Vermeer's works are largely genre pieces and portraits, with the exception of two cityscapes and two allegories . His subjects offer a cross-section of seventeenth-century Dutch society, ranging from the portrayal of a simple milkmaid at work, to the luxury and splendour of rich notables and merchantmen in their roomy houses. Besides these subjects, religious, poetical, musical, and scientific comments can also be found in his work. One aspect of his meticulous painting technique
6384-527: Was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age . During his lifetime, he was a moderately successful provincial genre painter , recognized in Delft and The Hague . He produced relatively few paintings, primarily earning his living as an art dealer. He was not wealthy; at his death, his wife
6468-419: Was a middle-class worker of silk or caffa (a mixture of silk and cotton or wool). He was the son of Jan Reyersz and Cornelia (Neeltge) Goris. As an apprentice in Amsterdam, Reijnier lived on fashionable Sint Antoniesbreestraat , a street with many resident painters at the time. In 1615, Reijnier married Digna. The couple moved to Delft and had a daughter named Gertruy who was baptized in 1620. In 1625, Reijnier
6552-576: Was forced to sell them. It became a part of the Royal Collection , and it is currently on display in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London. The picture was sold in May 1696 in Delft , part of the collection of Jacob Dissous , which included many Vermeers. It was later acquired by Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini in 1718, with Pellegrini's collection later being bought by Joseph Smith . The Music Lesson has been part of
6636-460: Was involved in a fight with a soldier named Willem van Bylandt who died from his wounds five months later. 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
6720-536: Was known about Vermeer's life until recently. 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 a few registers, official documents, and comments by other artists; for this reason, Thoré-Bürger named him "The Sphinx of Delft". 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
6804-399: Was left in debt. Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, and frequently used very expensive pigments . He is particularly renowned for making masterful use of light in his work. "Almost all his paintings", Hans Koningsberger wrote, "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
6888-538: Was probably she who insisted that Vermeer convert to Catholicism before the marriage on 5 April. The fact that Vermeer's father was in considerable debt also did not help in discussions on the marriage. Leonaert Bramer , who was Catholic himself, put in a good word for Vermeer and it was this that led Maria to drop her oppositions. According to art historian Walter Liedtke , Vermeer's conversion seems to have been made with conviction. His painting The Allegory of Faith , made between 1670 and 1672, placed less emphasis on
6972-410: 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. Since that time, Vermeer's reputation has grown enormously. In Dutch , Vermeer is pronounced [vərˈmeːr] , and Johannes Vermeer as [joːˈɦɑnəs fərˈmeːr] , with /v/ assimilating to
7056-467: Was the mechanical cause of the "exaggerated" perspective seen in The Music Lesson (London, Royal Collection ). In 2008, American entrepreneur and inventor Tim Jenison developed the theory that Vermeer had used a camera obscura along with a "comparator mirror", which is similar in concept to a camera lucida but much simpler and makes it easy to match colour values. Jenison later modified
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