Vermeer

This fully illustrated volume collects the complete works of Johannes Vermeer (1632–75). Published in Polígrafa's affordable Old Masters series, it captures the deep blues and transparent yellows of the 35 canvasses that comprise the known work of one of the most popular artists in history.

In his lifetime, Vermeer's fame barely extended beyond his native Delft and a small circle of patrons; even in the decades after his death, his name was largely forgotten. It was not until the mid-19th century that Vermeer was rediscovered and his mastery rightly vindicated.

All of his work, created throughout the second half of the 17th century, is linked to the emergence of the new bourgeois class that provided his main clientele and the subject of many of his paintings. His evocative repertoire of everyday actions—the reading of letters, kitchen tasks, playing music—was animated by his tremendous ability to depict indoor light atmospherically.

Little is known about the personality of Johannes Vermeer (1632–75), one of the most famous Dutch painters of the 17th century. We do know, however, that he married a Catholic woman named Catharina Bolnes, whose family was closely associated with the Jesuit community in Delft. In this book, Gregor J.M. Weber shows that Vermeer himself actually pursued a Catholic way of life. The relationship between the artistic ambitions of the young Vermeer and his Catholic surroundings is also discussed. Vermeer's unique treatment of light, perception and perspective is examined and linked to the Jesuits' special interest in the camera obscura, the instrument of light and vision par excellence. With his research, Weber places Vermeer's person and art in a new context, which until now has only been touched on in passing.
Gregor J.M. Weber (born 1956) is head of the Department of Fine Arts at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and the author of 1600–1700: Dutch Golden Age, among other books.

Marcel Proust declared View of Delft by Johannes Vermeer (1632–75) “the most beautiful painting in the world.” Indeed, viewers have been captivated by Vermeer's extraordinary art since the 19th-century rediscovery of the Dutch painter. Maps, an intricate fusion of art and science, held an important and multifaceted place in the Netherlands in the 17th century and were of particular interest to Vermeer. Of the approximately 34 paintings attributed to the Delft-based artist, wall maps and other cartographic objects are depicted in nine of them, including the renowned Officer and Laughing Girl and his masterpiece, The Art of Painting. With stunning reproductions and incisive text, this book is the most comprehensive study of the artist's depiction of wall maps to date. Drawing on rare surviving examples of the maps and other primary sources, author Rozemarijn Landsman examines this intriguing aspect of Vermeer’s work, greatly enriching and expanding our understanding of the art and life of the “Sphinx of Delft.”