The Paintings of Johannes Vermeer mesmerize the eye and draw the crowds.
What is it about Vermeer? Perhaps it’s the sparse nature of his output. Vermeer lived the credo “less is more.” He painted just three pictures a year when his Golden Age of Dutch Painting colleagues were doing fifty. By dying young he ensured a scarce supply of pictures. Just 35 paintings are attributed to him. Vermeer left no trace of himself. Biographers have to look at his wife’s tax records to get a hint of how Vermeer lived.
Or maybe its just something in Vermeer’s light, flooding through windows onto walls, peeking out behind doors in homes of impeccable bourgeois taste. It is light that is a miracle of painting technique, and a visual harmonic that brings an inner peace.
(Hosted by Michael Goldfarb)
Guests:
Anthony Bailey author of “Vermeer, a View of Delft”
and Dr. Alan Chong, curator of the Collection at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.