Pieter Roelofs

This is the catalogue to the Vermeer exposition at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam which is on this spring with all the tickets having been sold. We have tickets for next week, but with the train strikes happening all over France at the moment we have I think a fifty per cent chance of getting there.
I ordered the catalogue in advance because it is a large coffee table size book of over 300 pages and it will stay on our coffee table.

I was a little disappointed when I received the book to discover that the reproductions of all the photographs are in a dull matt finish, but having read through the catalogue which contains many enlargements of specific areas of the canvases I can understand that this was the best option. There are 37 paintings in the exposition and they are all examined in some detail by the various contributors to the book. I should call it a book rather than a catalogue because the chapters are arranged by various themes that cover the working life of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). It starts with a short history of his life with a little of the background and this is followed by a description of the interior of his house. Historians know a lot about this, because shortly after Vermeer's death his wife filed for bankruptcy and there was an inventory made of all her possessions room by room, this document was published for the first time in 1957, therefore we discover that in the attic room upstairs, there were two painting easels: this has led to some conjecture as to whether Vermeer had a pupil. Gregor J. M. Weber then follows with a chapter on the pictorial world of Vermeer, highlighting the innovations that he made and explaining his mastery of perspective.

The following chapters then discuss the paintings in the exposition, starting with the four early historical paintings before moving onto his breathtaking picture of the 'View of Delft'. The chapter entitled 'In Search of the Perfect Illusion of Space' by J.M Weber takes some of Vermeer's early interior scenes examining them in some detail, which is useful in guiding the eye of the reader as to what to look for specifically in the paintings; for example his innovative way of using different thicknesses of paint to emphasise the feeling of space that he attains in his pictures. There is a chapter on the various position of windows and how they brought light into the paintings and how Vermeer used this to make his compositions. There are chapters on the people in the pictures, what they are doing, their relationships to one another, their clothes and possessions and how they are situated in the rooms. There is a discussion on his portraits (Tronies) for example the famous 'Girl with the Pearl Ear Ring'. The final chapter is devoted to another masterpiece 'The Art of Painting'.

All the chapters are preceded by page size reproductions of parts of the painting or sometimes the whole paintings, within the chapters there are smaller productions of other artists works that complement Vermeer or give some insight to his innovations. Various contributors to the book have individual chapters, but apart from some differing opinions on whether Vermeer used a camera obscura or other historical details, the chapters flow together very well. The book is of course aimed at the more general reader, but there is plenty of information, certainly enough to enhance the enjoyment of the paintings. The books starts with smaller reproductions of the 37 works on display and serve as a useful reference. There are no shortages of all Vermeer's work available on the internet and having one of these reproductions to hand while reading the text is very useful. There is of course an extensive bibliography and copious notes at the end of each chapter. The main purpose of a book like this; that purports to be much more than just a catalogue is to inform the reader in preparation for his visit and to provide a keepsake afterwards and I think this book serves that purpose very well. It is not a book to lug around the exposition itself. 5 stars.… (meer)