Jul

23

Dutch Master.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

July 23, 2008 |

 

“Yesterday this picture was worth millions…Today, it is worth nothing, and nobody would cross the street to see it for free. But the picture has not changed. What has?”

That’s a statement from Han van Meegeren, a Dutch art dealer who was charged with collaborating with the Nazis by helping them purchase works by Johannes Vermeer. In a new book, The Forger’s Spell: a true story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the greatest art hoax of the twentieth century, Edward Dolnick describes how van Meegeren helped fill a “Vermeer gap”, created by the scarcity of the Dutch master’s paintings, producing “unknown work”. In his review of the book Daniel Stashower says it raises “provocative questions about the nature of art and the psychology of deception”, but seems to miss a larger, and more difficult, issue. What is it about Vermeer? It’s not just the scarcity of his paintings (only about thirty-five are known to exist) or, for that matter, the scarcity of known facts about his life. Even the shortness of his life (he was baptized in 1632 and died in 1675) isn’t enough to explain the fascination. In fact for almost two centuries after his death Vermeer was largely unknown; the French critic Théophile Thoré corrected earlier critics and collectors who’d attributed his paintings to other artists, and throughout the 20th Century his work steadily increased in value.

In addition to the Nazis Salvador Dali had a fascination with Vermeer, putting him (or at least a figure believed to be Vermeer, since we have no actual portraits of the artist) into at least one painting (The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table) and doing variations on some of Vermeer’s paintings, particularly The Lacemaker.

Vermeer has also inspired fiction. Tracy Chevalier’s Girl With A Pearl Earring tells a fictional story of how one of Vermeer’s paintings came to be, and Girl In Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland tells a story of a previously unknown Vermeer, tracing it backward through time to its origin. (What is it with Vermeer’s girls?) There are several more books about stolen Vermeers, such as The Music Lesson by Katharine Weber, and a young adult novel, Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett about a couple of kids who get caught up in solving the crime of a stolen Vermeer painting. And in Thomas Harris’s Hannibal former guard Barney is caught auctioning off the infamous Dr. Lecter’s items to finance his plan to see every known Vermeer painting in person.

What is it about Vermeer’s paintings, seemingly simplistic as they are, that they inspire so much passion, so much fascination, and, for that matter, such high prices? I have to admit I can see, in Vermeer’s deft handling of things like light and texture, why he’s considered one of the greatest artists of all time, but the kind of mania he inspires seems to go beyond mere appreciation for his technical accomplishments.

Check out this video of Salvador Dali taunting a rhinoceros with Vermeer’s Lacemaker. It doesn’t answer any questions about Vermeer, and doesn’t really explain anything about Dali either, except that he was a bizarre showoff.

Update: The Literary Review has, well, a review of Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. Putting Vermeer in a global and historical context, Timothy Brook’s book sounds like pretty heavy reading that traces such minute details as silver coins in a Vermeer painting all the way to China, where a large amount of European silver was traded.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. Dan on July 24, 2008 1:57 pm

    There are also some graphics, limited edition works that reference Vermeer and Dali did his interpretation of “The Letter” by Vermeer. Dali’s version was done in 1974.

    Dan

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