Johannes Vermeer Bio - Dutch Baroque Painter

Johannes Vermeer Bio - Dutch Baroque Painter Movement, Style, School or Type of Art: Dutch Baroque Date and Place of Birth: October 31, 1632, Delft, Netherlands This was, at least, the date on which Vermeer was baptized. There is no record of his actual date of birth, though we assume it was close to the above. Vermeers parents were Protestant Reformed, a Calvinist denomination that held infant baptism as a sacrament. (Vermeer himself is thought to have converted to Roman Catholicism when he married.) Life: Perhaps appropriately, given the scant factual documentation about this artist, any discussion of Vermeer must begin with confusion over his real name. Its known that he went by his birth name, Johannes van der Meer, shortened it to Jan Vermeer later in life and was given the third moniker of Jan Vermeer van Delft (presumably to distinguish him from an unrelated family of Jan Vermeers who painted in Amsterdam). These days, the artists name is correctly referenced as Johannes Vermeer. We also know when he was married and buried, and civic records from Delft indicate the dates Vermeer was admitted to the painters guild and took out loans. Other records tell that, after his early death, his widow filed for bankruptcy and support for their eight minor (the youngest of eleven, total) children. As Vermeer did not enjoy fame - or even a widespread reputation as an artist - during his lifetime, everything else written about him is (at best) an educated guess. Vermeers early work concentrated on history paintings but, around 1656, he moved into the genre paintings he would produce for the rest of his career. The man seems to have painted with painstaking slowness, dissecting a whole color spectrum out of white light, executing near-perfect optical precision and reproducing the most minute details. This may have translated to fussy from another artist, but with Vermeer it all served to highlight the personality of the pieces central figure(s). Possibly the most amazing thing about this immensely famous artist is that hardly anyone knew he had lived, let alone painted, for centuries after his death. Vermeer wasnt discovered until 1866, when the French art critic and historian, Thà ©ophile Thorà ©, published a monograph about him. In the years since, Vermeers authenticated output has been variously numbered at between 35 and 40 pieces, although people hopefully search for more now that they are known to be both rare and valuable. Important Works: Diana and her Companions, 1655-56 Procuress, 1656 Girl Asleep at a Table, ca. 1657 Officer with a Laughing Girl, ca. 1655-60 The Music Lesson, 1662-65 Girl with a Pearl Earring, ca. 1665-66 Allegory of the Art of Painting, ca. 1666-67 Date and Place of Death: December 16, 1675, Delft, Netherlands As with his baptismal record, this is the date upon which Vermeer was buried. Youd want to assume his burial was very near to his date of death, though. How To Pronounce Vermeer: vur ·mear Quotes From Johannes Vermeer: No, sorry. We have nothing from this man of mystery. We can only imagine what he might have said. (One guess, with eleven children in the house, would be the occasional plea for quiet.) Sources and Further Reading Arasse, Daniel; Grabar, Terry (trans.). Vermeer: Faith in Painting.Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1994. Baker, Christopher. Vermeer, Jan [Johannes Vermeer]The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford University Press, 2001. Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, 6 November 2005. Franits, Wayne. Vermeer, Johannes [Jan] Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press, 6 November 2005. Read a review of Grove Art Online. Montias, John M. Artists and Artisans in Delft, a Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century.Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1981. Snow, Edward A. A Study of Vermeer.Berkeley : University of California Press, 1994 (revised ed.). Wheelock, Arthur K.; Broos, Ben. Johannes Vermeer.New Haven : Yale University Press, 1995. Wolf, Bryan Jay. Vermeer and the Invention of Seeing.Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2001. Videos Worth Watching Dutch Masters: Vermeer (2000) Girl With a Pearl Earring (2004) Vermeer: Master of Light (2001)Publisher website Vermeer: Light, Love and Silence (2001) See more resources on Johannes Vermeer. Go to Artist Profiles: Names beginning with V or Artist Profiles: Main Index