Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found

Bold new claims about Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer and why he painted are at the core of this exemplary biography from art historian Graham-Dixon (Caravaggio). Drawing from a wealth of historical documents, the author argues that Vermeer (1632–1675) did most of his work for two patrons: husband and wife Pieter Claesz van Ruijven and Maria de Knuijt, members of the Collegiants, a dissenting Christian movement that developed in response to the Eighty Years’ War. The sect prized egalitarian values, eschewed traditional preaching, and gave women equal rights to speak. Meetings were often held in members’ homes; those that occurred in the van Ruijven household likely used Vermeer’s paintings as “devotional pictures” to aid members in their worship. Domestic scenes in Vermeer’s paintings are actually loaded with religious symbolism, Graham-Dixon contends. For example, nails protruding from walls in the backgrounds of The Milkmaid and Woman with a Balance symbolize Jesus’s crucifixion, and Girl with a Pearl Earring was likely a baptismal portrait of Vermeer’s patrons’ daughter, Magdalena. Drawing from auction and inheritance records, the author convincingly repositions Vermeer, about whom relatively little is known and whose motivations were presumed to be mostly secular, as a painter with egalitarian religious views. Along the way, Graham-Dixon makes informed, well-researched guesses about whom Vermeer might have apprenticed with, among other mysteries. Serious Vermeer fan won’t want to miss this. (Apr.)