Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum



If you were planning a trip to the Netherlands early this year, now is the time to start making your travel arrangements. For, starting this week, February 10, 2023, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is opening the most comprehensive exhibition of Johannes Vermeer paintings to date, with a show including 28 of the artist’s paintings. Considering that the great master of the Dutch Golden Age supposedly only made 40 to 45 paintings in all his life, and that only about 37 of those are still in existence today, this show represents one grand retrospective of this illusive artist of the 17th century. 

 

Born in 1632 in Delft, the Netherlands, he lived a reclusive life in poverty there, and died in 1675, at the young age of 43. If he ever managed to paint a self-portrait during those years, that has been lost. We still today do not know what he looked like, but that has not detracted from making him one of the most recognized, and recognizable artists of all times. His paintings have inspired generations of artists, have been the subject of books, novels, and stories (remember the “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, the beautiful novel by Tracy Chevalier, and the 2003 movie by the same name, based on her novel?).



Besides displaying the largest concentration of Vermeer works to date, the Dutch national museum explores several questions regarding Vermeer’s process in painting, and especially theories that have been advanced for years regarding his possible use of optics in developing the amazing details of his paintings. It has been speculated, for instance, that Vermeer had been exposed to the potential of using, and employed, a camera obscura, a simplified form of projecting a natural image through a pinhole, through his association with Jesuit monks in Delft. The Jesuits were famous for their scientific experiments and their advances in mathematics, and it is possible that their scientific knowledge and discoveries had an impact on the painter. (When I was preparing for my engineering entrance examinations to the National Technical University of Athens, I was immersed into the Jesuit books on algebra, two-dimensional and three-dimensional geometry/stereometry).

 

If you cannot be in Amsterdam this month, though, do not despair! This amazing show will be on until June 4, 2023. Just plan ahead and get your tickets well in advance.


For an informative article about the Rijksmusum Vermeer exhibition, see Nina Siegal’s article “The Fullest View of Vermeer Still Leaves Plenty to the Imagination” in the New York Times of March 3-4, 2023.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/arts/design/vermeer-rijksmueums.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20230204&instance_id=84533&nl=the-morning&regi_id=84009102&segment_id=124420&te=1&user_id=b1c2107b12d0acc571cc418bbb4bc903

 


The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands. It has a collection of approximately one million objects of art, crafts, and history, of which about 8,000 are on permanent display. They include, in addition to its Vermeers, masterpieces by Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and an incredible list of Dutch/Flemish artists from the 15th to the 20th centuries. The museum was founded in 1798 and was originally located in The Hague, the capital of the country. Its magnificent Amsterdam building, designed by Pierre Cuypers, was opened in 1885. In 2003 it closed for a major renovation that took ten years and 375 million euros to complete. It reopened in 2013. For more information on the Rijksmuseum, including ticket details (museum entry is 22.50 euros) and tickets for the Vermeer exhibition (30 euros), please see:


https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/destinations/amsterdam/museums/the-rijksmuseum-amsterdam.htm

 

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/visit/practical-info/opening-hours-and-prices

 

Books on Vermeer

 

John Michael Montias, 1991. Vermeer and His Milieu. Princeton University Press.

 

Arthur K. Wheelock, 1995. Vermeer and the Art of Painting.  Yale University Press.

 

Arthur K. Wheelock, 1997. Vermeer: The Complete Works.  Harry N. Abrams.

 

Marjorie E. Wieseman, Wayne Franits and H. Perry Chapman, 2011. Vermeer's Women: Secrets and Silence. Yale University Press.

 

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