Johannes Vermeer Picture Study Aid and Art Prints

Johannes Vermeer Picture Study

Johannes, or Jan, Vermeer, was born in Delft of the Dutch Republic and baptized there on October 31, 1632. He died 43 years later and was buried on December 15, 1675. From that span of years, he left behind a widow, at least eight children, a treasure-trove of paintings showing intimate views of Delft, and little else, including hard facts about his life.

Where his fellow Dutchman, Rembrandt, bequeathed the world close to 100 pictures of himself, Vermeer gave us only one possible self-portrait contained off to the side in The Procuress. His signature is scattered among legal documents from the time and we can find quotes and even a poem about him from his contemporaries. He was promoted to the head of the Guild of St. Luke by his fellow painters in 1662 and we even have a detailed inventory of the items in his home after his death. However, from the man himself, we hear nothing. 

Or do we?

So little is known about his life and yet, in some ways, his paintings offer us the most intimate part of him: his view of the world. He let us into the rooms of his home where he lived out the relatively short years of his life, often giving us glimpses of family members, servants, and every-day objects found around the house. In View of Delft, he takes us on a walk along the canal, showing us a typical morning in his time. He allows us to experience an afternoon outside his door in The Little Street, complete with women attending their chores and children attending their games. And all of these snippets of time were recorded with a clarity of vision and depth of expression rarely seen at the time or even since.

Much conjecture exists about how he created these photographic-like scenes, though most scholars agree that he used some kind of viewing apparatus to aid in his work. However, what exactly he used and how much he relied upon it to create his masterpieces will most likely never be known. Theories have ranged from a camera obscura – a device that projects a scene from a brightly-lit area on to a flat surface in a dark room or box – to a more modern suggestion that he simply used a mirror. Still, despite the fact that his skill and eye for aesthetics are quite evident, many art historians are loathe to suggest that he used any kind of device at all, offended at the idea that he might, in some way, have “cheated.”

And while I think these debates are interesting and can add an element of intrigue to picture talks with older students, the beauty of Charlotte Mason’s principles in art study is that we, and our students, need not be caught up in these scholarly debates or question marks surrounding his life. When we look at his pieces, we can immerse ourselves in the serenity of his settings, the delicateness of his lighting, and the quotidian tasks of his models. We can ponder them together and imagine what the girl in the red hat is about to say or what the letter contains or wonder what thoughts run through the woman’s mind as she looks at the empty balance. These are pieces offering many opportunities for contemplation that will hang wonderfully in the “halls of [our] imagination” and, as Ms. Mason suggests, when doing our picture talks, “there must be knowledge and, in the first place, not the technical knowledge of how to produce, but some reverent knowledge of what has been produced; that is, children should learn pictures, line by line, group by group, by reading, not books, but pictures themselves.” (vol 6, p 214)

The intention of this picture study aid is to equip the home educator with some basic facts and understanding of a sampling of the work of Johannes Vermeer. It is not meant to be an exhaustive analysis or study of each piece or a complete biography of the artist.

About picture study, Ms. Mason recommended keeping learning as simple as possible, especially in the younger years, and put extra emphasis on the images by themselves.

There is no talk about schools of painting, little about style; consideration of these matters comes in later life, the first and most important thing is to know the pictures themselves. As in a worthy book we leave the author to tell his own tale, so do we trust a picture to tell its tale through the medium the artist gave it. In the region of art as else-where we shut out the middleman. (vol 6 pg 216)

Definite teaching is out of the question; suitable ideas are easily given, and a thoughtful love of Art inspired by simple natural talk over the picture at which the child is looking. (PR Article “Picture Talks”)

…we begin now to understand that art is not to be approached by such an acadamised road. It is of the spirit, and in ways of the spirit must we make our attempt. We recognise that the power of appreciating art and of producing to some extent an interpretation of what one sees is as universal as intelligence, imagination, nay, speech, the power of producing words. But there must be knowledge and, in the first place, not the technical knowledge of how to produce, but some reverent knowledge of what has been produced; that is, children should learn pictures, line by line, group by group, by reading, not books, but pictures themselves. A friendly picture-dealer supplies us with half a dozen beautiful little reproductions of the work of some single artist, term by term. After a short story of the artist’s life and a few sympathetic words about his trees or his skies, his river-paths or his figures, the little pictures are studied one at a time; that is, children learn, not merely to see a picture but to look at it, taking in every detail.” (vol 6 pg 214)

This Picture Study Aid is meant to offer basic information about the artists as well as ready answers should your student ask about a particular aspect of a piece and the explanation isn’t readily evident. Ms. Mason emphasized not focusing on strict academic discourse when doing picture study, but rather simply exposing students to the art itself:

His education should furnish him with whole galleries of mental pictures, pictures by great artists old and new;––…––in fact, every child should leave school with at least a couple of hundred pictures by great masters hanging permanently in the halls of his imagination, to say nothing of great buildings, sculpture, beauty of form and colour in things he sees. Perhaps we might secure at least a hundred lovely landscapes too,––sunsets, cloudscapes, starlight nights. At any rate he should go forth well furnished because imagination has the property of magical expansion, the more it holds the more it will hold. (vol 6 pg 43)