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Vermeer - A Life Lost and Found
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Message
Posted
I've just spent a bookshop gift voucher on Vermeer - A Life Lost and Found by Andrew Graham-Dixon.
What a lovely volume! As well a good reproduction of his work, there are beautiful historical maps of Delft, diagrams and even family trees. 370 pages, and worth every penny in my view. Graham-Dixon has spent a good deal of time on his research into some of the hitherto unknown parts of the artists life. Here's some of the blurb:
"...Vermeer was also deeply affected by the struggles that shook his world, the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence and the yet more terrible Thirty Years War, which ravaged the neighbouring German lands and resulted in the deaths of millions. The author shows how he was moved to become a pacifist by such atrocities, and thereafter made many of his closest friends in the ranks of Europe’s first peace movement. A further revelation is that Vermeer’s closest collaborator and chief patron was a woman, as were many others in his immediate circle. These are all previously untold stories."
Can't wait to get stuck in.
Edited
by Norrette Moore
Posted
Interesting Norrette. His ‘milkmaid’ is one of my all-time favourite paintings. I’ll have to get it and stop wasting my money on non essentials like food and energy bills.
Just looked it up, art book prices can vary wildly, but at £15 I needn’t starve. My only reservation is the author. Mixed feelings about him, he’ll often present his conjectures as fact. But you don’t have to swallow everything said by art critics.
Posted
It a big cake to digest that book but so very well researched. Dixon opens up so much of the artist Vermeer and his time. Insolently this is not in the book it has been suggested that the pearl in the girls ear is not a pearl but a metal kind of earring because the pearl is far to big. Something to chew on.
Posted
Had second thoughts about this book. It’s the paintings that interest me and there are only 30 odd known to exist. This book is over 400 pages long, I suspect it’ll be crowded with ‘what ifs’ and maybes’. (Like the pearl). I have books containing colour prints of some of his art…I’ll settle for that.
I may be wrong, I’ll be interested in what you think of it Norrette.
Posted
I’ve got the book too but not got very far, side tracked! But I did enjoy his book on Caravaggio which was full of info and we used it to visit places where the paintings are hung ( not all in the same year of course). There are plenty of stuffy old books on art but Andrew GD is always interesting and readable - IMO of course.
Posted
I know of someone else - other side of the Atlantic - who's been researching a book on Vermeer for some time now; I expect it to be thorough (it's Virgil Elliott) if not necessarily too daring in its conclusions. Truth is, very little is known about Vermeer - it would be worth having Graham-Dixon's book for the plates alone; and in due course, to compare the two books, if Virgil, now in the region of 81 I think, gets around to finishing his.
Posted
The revised edition isn't too expensive ( Traditional Oil Painting, that is). The original was out of print for some time, and copies fetched a very high price. I've actually forgotten how much my copy of the new edition cost, and I wouldn't have done that if it had been outrageous - I have a long memory for gouging prices: and very rarely pay them. I saw one copy of his original for sale at £65.00 on Amazon: which is why I waited for the new edition.
Posted
I should imagine with many offspring and what we might think of today as a very busy lifestyle with the struggles of hardship, his need for the expensive Ultramarine, his capacity to produce artwork may have been limited to time and expense. The art that was left behind is to behold no doubt. I am a big fan of his works. I don't know what other people feel but when I look at a painting, I'm looking at it from a holistic approach. As Norrette, has already touched on Vermeer's struggles and untold stories, this is a gateway into the final reasoning of what he chose to produce. That's my personal take on it. Call me barmy. His work is similar to Ter Borch who was 13 years his senior. Ter Borch had a limited palette in comparison. There are always many questions to ask when looking at the grand works of the old masters. We don't just look and admire a painting, I think it's important to understand the beginning and end point.
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