View of Delft by Johannes Vermeer, 1660-1661

 

 

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The only possible way of explaining the almost complete absence of portraits among Vermeer's works is that he found no pleasure in painting them. He was averse to portraying human beings, either because he had perforce to comply with certain wishes of his customer, or because the sitter attracted him but little.

On the other hand, he found in the motifs of urban subjects just that intimate sense of repose that charmed him most. For Vermeer nature was static: the image he had once formed after long and intense observation of every detail, became for him an immutable reality. He did not reproduce an impression, but sought as far as possible to suppress his own personality and address himself to his subject purely as a painter.

To this extraordinary capacity we owe two masterpieces: The View of Delft and the Street. We have no way of establishing whether the artist first undertook the large view and then, with still greater concentration, the smaller section of the street, or whether he began with the smaller picture and then successfully fulfilled the greater task. The two works were conceived in the same spirit, and the View of Delft certainly represents the greater artistic achievement. We know from the auction of 1696 that Vermeer also painted a third picture of the same type, the View of a few Houses.

The ability to combine the everyday with the eternal is the secret of the artistic genius. A brick house with a stepped gable and closed shutters, a glimpse of a small yard, a couple of roofs and the cloudy sky of Holland: these ingredients might have resulted in a very home-made impression. But the reproduction suffices to show that Vermeer produced therewith something that can hardly be expressed in words. The color is attenuated by the grey light filtered through heavy clouds. The contrasts are barely noticeable.

Against the subdued red of the old bricks, small areas of white- washed wall and the soft green of the shutters, an uneven, brownish pavement, and only a couple of resonant tones: the bright blue and yellow of the two busy women's dresses. Brighter and sunnier is the View of Delft. Vermeer placed himself outside the city, choosing a viewpoint that offered him what was most characteristic of a Dutch town: a canal with a few ships, two town gates, a bridge, the lofty steeple of the churchóthe whole profile of the town of Delft vaulted over by a majestic, cloudy sky. The rippled surface of the water reflects the houses; sunbeams break through the clouds and light up parts of the town.

Their light touches the sandy bank in the foreground, glides over the water, and takes firm hold on the roofs and towers of the inner town. The gates and the small dwelling houses on the outskirts are dark, and by this method of illumination the painter has achieved the perspective the picture requires. The town is built up of horizontal and vertical lines without a trace of vagueness or uncertainty.

But Vermeer is never possessed by mere topographic zeal; his precision is not an end in itself, but is subordinated to his vision which, while seeming to lose itself in every detail, always remained completely mistress of the whole. His aim was completeness, and the likeness of the town of Delft is therefore a portrait in the deepest sense, the unique experience raised to the level of ultimate truth.

The picture has an incomparable glow: brick-red against flame-red; blue against lemon-yellow and orange; deep blue against lead-grey. The shadings are innumerable. The granular brick of the walls, the green creeper (that time has turned almost blue), here and there even the ships' hulls, are dabbed and dabbed again. These curious pointilles are distributed over the whole picture. Conjured up as by magic from so rich a palette, the View of Delft is wholly subject to the overwhelming power of light.

Print DIGG MIXX!

Johannes Vermeer "The Little Street" (1657-1658) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

  

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