Traces of Vermeer by Jane Jelley

It's a real love this one expressed Jane Jelley for the art and person of Johannes Vermeer in her latest book: Traces of Vermeer. The story public and private, artistic and human of the one of the Dutch painter who lived and produced 36 masterpiece in Delft,  in 1660s, and was part of the so called genre painters.

It was a  great joy to read her book: Traces of Vermeer published by Oxford Press is an extraordinary new book.

You can breath in every page Jane Jelley's passion, devotion and enthusiasm for this painter and I can tell you that, thanks to it this one has been the most beautiful, sunny art book I have ever read in all my life because it doesn't treat the topic with a cold analysis of the artist, but with a love and an intensity that it is pretty unusual. You can feel the warmth of that time, you can visualize thanks to the vivid, rich, loving description of the author the Delft of 1660s, you can imagine the painter while he works or he lives a day in his city.

There are also technical parts of course but the book is lovely and absolutely readable by everyone. In particular if you are a painter, or a passionate of painters and painting and art this book is for you! It's too beauty for not buying it!

Who was Vermeer?
A mysterious painter after all, but not too much distant from some painters I know, "bears" as Vermeer was after all.

He didn't leave a lot of traces of himself.

Van Gogh wrote wagons of letters, for example and we know a lot about him, his character, his thoughts, his feelings.

Vermeer didn't leave journals, letters, or anything else for the so-called posterity, nothing able to give us a real perception of the man and the artist.

The place where he worked in, a beautiful little city, was spectacular at that time and very cold let's add this, that's why there was an extreme richness of warm clothes and hats and other ornaments in Vermeer's paintings. The houses the one the painter described, and the heavy warm clothes because winters were long and rigid, very cold.

Vermeer's houses were also destroyed after his death and later re-built when local people discovered the genius he was.
Delft at the moment lives and breath Vermeer's atmosphere and the painter is lived like the greatest icon that they have had although the author remarks that there is not any painting in the city by Vermeer but just copies.

When Vermeer died abruptly and unexpectedly leaving a wife and so many children, a real soccer team! :-) he was poor and more important indebted, so the wife constricted to sell most of the items in the house.

Vermeer lived the second part of his married life in the house owned by the mother of his wife. It was a very large house with twelve rooms. It is not excluded that the lady helped financially Vermeer and his numerous family in the most critical economical moments of their existence.

Sure a man like him was busy in various directions: family first of all, work, business and the house was plenty of people most of the time.

Vermeer became painter after a long stage, we would use this word today with a master painter. It is unknown who was Vermeer's masterpainter.

The author describes also our way of living art now, in comparison to the historical moment in which Vermeer's lived in, the art of painting.
It's possible at the moment, it is still an expensive hobby, if there is sufficient money to buying canvas, colors and tools via internet for starting a career as painter without too many problems.

In 1600s this one for a Dutch boy or man was a serious profession and in general painters worked for rich people so that later they could have been paid for their work. An intelligent approach to life and art after all.

Vermeer's dad was a painter and maybe to him it was more simple to find a master painter. It is unknown if the same Vermeer has had a scholar and he was a master for some other painters.
There are not letters or anything written by any other contemporaries, painters in Delft in grade to reveal this particular so maybe Vermeer worked alone and in the "chaotic solitude" of his house.

As we will see also the famous painting: The Girl with a Pearl Earring although a movie traced a sort of romantic story between the painter and his muse can't give us a defined identity of this girl. It could have been also one of his numerous daughters. Yes we are in a sort of condition like Leonardo and his controversial Monna Lisa. A man, a woman and so on...

In this case without doubt we have a girl, very young, looking at the painter. The scenario is dark as loved by the genre painters for  giving big result at the main subject in a complete warm light.

The girl wears  an exotic clothe a turban and a pearl earring.
What it is more important to seeing is her facial expression.
There is tenderness, her eyes are vigil, the mouth is just open for giving at the expression more mobility.
In my personal interpretation of this painting maybe the painter wanted to portray an action as they always did in every paintings you will observe of the genre painters: there is never passivity, always mobility.

In this case to me the action of the girl was this one: she was called by someone and she was in the act of answering.

In fact the girl's mouth is open as if she would have wanted to saying something leaving the words suspended or not yet said, or like if she would have been called by someone and turning her back, she was in the act of answering and looking at the person at the same time.

Enjoy this book for discovering all Vermeer's world. From his techniques of painting, the colors he used and the differences between our colors and the colors of the past and the other tools used by Vermeer  for obtaining certain specific effects including maybe the use of lenses and a dark chamber. No, pictures were not yet invented...
Last but not least immerse yourself in the wonderful Delft of the 1660s. Magnificent book.

Highly suggested!


I thanks Oxford University Press for this wonderful book!




Anna Maria Polidori