The Violence in Vermeer

As yet, archival probe has failed to substantiate this conversation, though it appears, much oregon little intact, successful the 2003 movie mentation of Chevalier’s book, with Colin Firth, arsenic a well-wigged Vermeer, issuing instructions to Scarlett Johansson, arsenic Griet. Meanwhile, we person a caller contender for the relation of the miss successful the painting. In a caller book, “Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found” (Norton), Andrew Graham-Dixon identifies her arsenic Magdalena van Ruijven, the girl of Vermeer’s astir important patrons, and offers a crushed for her parted lips: “Not lone does the miss look connected the constituent of utterance, she has the aerial of idiosyncratic astir to accidental the astir urgent happening they person ever said.”

The someone, we are told, is different Magdalena—Mary Magdalene, who, successful the acheronian of aboriginal morning, goes to Christ’s tomb and finds it empty. She sees Jesus but believes him to beryllium the gardener. (Is determination a much fantastic illustration of mistaken identity—revelation delayed by quality error?) In the words of St. John’s Gospel, “She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.” Virtuous women, it would seem, do unfastened their mouths successful paintings. That momentous turning, according to Graham-Dixon, is what we observe successful Vermeer’s picture. As the miss looks implicit her shoulder, we are lasting wherever Christ stood. And what of the pearl? “It is nary elemental jewel,” Graham-Dixon writes, “but a reflection of the authorities of her soul, bursting with joyousness and irradiated with divine light.” Try sticking your caput to that.

How, why, and by what close does a idiosyncratic nutrient tranquil creation successful the midst, oregon the wake, of tumultuous times? Well, it helps if you hail from flat, contested bluish lands. Think of Watteau, calved connected the articulation betwixt present-day France and Belgium, successful 1684, six years aft the extremity of the Franco-Dutch War. Twenty-seven miles southbound lies the municipality wherever Matisse grew up and which German soldiers invaded erstwhile helium was a twelvemonth and a time old, astatine the dawn of 1871. (At the acold extremity of his life, the éclat of his cutouts was conjured nether Nazi occupation. His daughter, Marguerite, was tortured by the Gestapo.) Matisse’s begetter began successful the textile trade, arsenic did Reynier Jansz Vermeer, who was surviving successful Amsterdam and engaged successful the manufacture of caffa, a costly woven fabric, erstwhile helium met a pistillate named Digna Baltens. They joined successful 1615, and it was not until 1632 that their son, Johannes, was born. As befits specified an environment, his handling of tactile stuff—not conscionable silk and fur but breadstuff and brickwork, too—never deserted him. The raised ridges of a map, unrolled and hung connected a wall, asked to beryllium registered successful paint.

“I’m a small nervous—it’s my archetypal one, and my archetypal clip seeing this weird solid babe prison.”

Cartoon by Joe Dator

There are areas successful the beingness of Vermeer, who died successful his forties, successful 1675, that person ne'er been mapped. In each likelihood, they ne'er volition be. Given however acutely immoderate of his enactment refers to Italian artists of the erstwhile generation, for instance, it’s not inconceivable that helium went to Italy; regardless, nary grounds of the sojourn exists. To the millions of radical who admit “Girl with a Pearl Earring” oregon “The Lacemaker,” Vermeer is small much than a sanction and a place: Delft, wherever his beingness began and ended, and wherever helium is buried successful the Oude Kerk, oregon aged church. (A motion successful the religion declares that the coffin of 1 of his children was laid connected apical of his.) Beyond the bounds of Delft, the surviving Vermeer was mostly uncelebrated. His reputation, specified arsenic it was, went into eclipse, until helium was reclaimed and illuminated by French critics successful the second fractional of the nineteenth century.