Rijksmuseum’s Closer to Johannes Vermeer
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, hosts an interactive online exhibit called Closer to Johannes Vermeer, which has been on my digital bucket list for several months. The Dutch phone, internet, and cable provider KPN gave additional funding for the exhibit. The total completion time for me was about three hours.
Guided Video Tour
The guided video portion of the exhibit lasts about ninety minutes. After an introduction on the life and work of Vermeer, the videos divide the thirty-seven surviving paintings into thirteen sections with an overarching theme. The exhibit is spoken in Dutch with narration by Joy Delima and English with narration by Stephen Fry. I listened to the English version, where Fry spoke in a soothing voice directly to the audience. Videos include open captions in the same language as the audio narration. Videos played automatically, which I appreciated, but I could not drag the marker forward or backward. If I missed the narration despite the captions, I could not go back a few seconds to listen and read again but instead had to rebegin the entire section.
Besides this minor technical difficulty, I enjoyed the themes for the paintings. “1: Into the City” describes the city of Delft in the 17th century. The pair of paintings, View of Delft (1660-1661) at Mauritshuis and The Little Street (1658-1659) at Rijksmuseum portray the quiet lives of ordinary people among the brick buildings and canals.
“2: Search for Stillness” continues the theme of quiet in the style of three portraits depicting young women: A Maid Asleep (1656-1657) at the MET, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (1657-1658) at Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, and The Milkmaid (1658-1659) at Rijksmuseum. The narration describes techniques employed by Vermeer to create a realistic painting. Using the technique of trompe l'œil, French for “trick the eye”, Vermeer used painted curtains and doorframes so the viewer could imagine peering into a room. To create multiple points of perspective, Vermeer created perspective lines using pins and string.
The next pair of themes, “3: Getting Up Close” and “4: Taking Distance”, demonstrates how Vermeer created space between the viewer and the subject in the painting. In Woman Reading a Letter (1662-1664) at Rijksmuseum and The Lacemaker (1666-1668) at the Louvre, the women are large on the canvas, creating what the narrator called “the ulimate feeling of closeness”. In contrast, Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (1662-1664) at Royal Collection Trust, The Concert (1663-1664) stolen from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and The Love Letter (1669-1670) at Rijksmuseum depict the entire room with the subjects. These paintings include clues as to what is happening in the scene. Instruments, clothing, and copies of other artwork reveal the leisure time, social status, and emotional state of the subjects.
Several sections discussed objects or characters that regularly appeared in the works of Vermeer. “5: Window to the World” shows Vermeer’s tendency to include windows on the left side of his paintings, with three notable works including Officer and Laughing Girl (1657-1658) in the Frick Collection, Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid (1672-1674) at the National Gallery of Ireland, and Young Woman with a Lute (1662-1664) at the MET.
“6: Written in Letters” highlight paintings with young women writing or receiving love letters. While six of Vermeer’s paintings, or a sixth of his work, depict letters, this section included A Lady Writing (1665-1667) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and Mistress and Maid (1665-1667) in the Frick Collection. Inside these types of paintings, images of the god Cupid and musical instruments symbolized love.
Beyond written love letters, Vermeer portrayed courting and seduction in a late 17th century style. During “7: A Charming Visitor”, young men visit fashionable young women who were otherwise confined to the house. Persian rugs cover an octagonal table, as these rugs were too expensive to leave on the floor. The Glass of Wine (1659-1661) at Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and The Girl with the Wine Glass (1656-1661) at Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Museum appear to depict the same young woman before and after a drink from the young man. In Girl Interrupted at Her Music (1659-1661) in the Frick Collection, she turns to face the audience instead of the suitor.
The women in “8: The Look of Seduction” also face the audience, but they have no suitor. These tronie portraits are fictional, with smooth skin, no eyebrows, large hats, and enormous pearls. While Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665-1667) at Mauritshuis is the most famous of these artworks, Vermeer also painted Study of a Young Woman (1664-1667) at the MET, along with Girl with the Red Hat (1665-1666) and Girl with a Flute (1665-1667) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Vermeer loved to paint young women playing musical instruments and made four paintings with this same subject, which appear during “9: In Harmony”. For three of the paintings, the women play a virginal. This precursor to the piano was owned by many rich families. A matching pair of paintings cut from the same canvas and completed between 1670 and 1672 are now at the National Gallery in London. In one painting, the young woman stands at a virginal, while she is seated in the other. In an era before copyright, Vermeer duplicated the work of other artists. A landscape appearing near the standing woman was copied from a work by Pieter Anthonisz van Groenewegen now at Hoogsteder Museum Foundation, while the sitting woman is underneath The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen (1622) at the MFA. As for Vermeer’s other musically inspired paintings completed during the same time, the third virginal painting is in the Leiden Collection, and The Guitar Player is at Kenwood House of English Heritage.
Vermeer and his clients were interested in science and religion, as evident during “10: Heaven and Earth” and “11: Inner Values”. Now sadly separated, he intended for The Astronomer (1668) at the Louvre and The Geographer (1669) at Städel Museum to be a “Pedant Pair”. While the astronomer points to his celestial globe to studen the heavens and stars, the geographer uses a terrestial globe to study the earth. These are the only paintings where Vermeer shows men all alone.
Vermeer was deeply religious, raised Protestant, and converted to Catholicism to marry his wife Catharina. He painted Woman with a Pearl Necklace (1662-1664) at Staatliche Museen du Berlin and Woman Holding a Balance (1662-1664) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. to symbolize vanity and greed respectively. For symbols of purity and cleanliness, he created brightly lit Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (1662-1664) at the MET. His most religious painting was Allegory of the Catholic Faith (1670-1674), also at the MET. He learned iconography from his Jesuit neighbors and read the book Iconologia by Cesare Ripa for inspiration. Symbols include the apple of Eve, cornerstone from the foundations of faith crushing the head a snake, a woman with her foot on the global for victory over earthly matters, and a glass sphere capturing reflection of light and a crucifix.
“12: Early Ambitions” took the viewer back in time to the start of Vermeer’s career. He first attempted religious themes in Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1654-1655) at the National Gallery of Scotland and a large icon of Saint Praxedis (1655) at the National Musuem of West Art in Tokyo, but the perspectives and floor designs are off. He attempted a mythology piece of Diana and Her Nymphs (1655-1656) at Mauritshuis but never again returned to this theme, although he often alluded to Cupid. He settled into his style with The Procuress (1656) at Gemäldegalerie Alta Meister, which includes everyday people, the familiar rug, and a young man looking back at the viewer.
The video portion of the exhibit closed with “13: The Art of Painting”, highlighting a painting of the same name (1666-1668) at Kunsthistorisches Museum. Considered the best painting of Vermeer’s career, the painting depicts an artist beginning a portrait of Clio, the muse of history, wearing a laurel crown to symbolize fame and eternal life. Vermeer was never wealthy in his lifetime. When he died in 1675, he was in debt, and his wife had to sell many possessions before declaring bankruptcy. Only posthumously did his art receive the credit it deserves.
Self-Guided Tour
After the guided video tour, I took the self-guided tour. I spent an additional ninety minutes in this section of the tour, although most visitors would be less thorough. At the beginning of the self-guided tour, a pop-up explains the basics of navigated the system. I could click and drag the paintings to zoom in on individual paintings, and then select glowing buttons to learn more about themes in the works of Vermeer. The information appeared a gray sidebar on the bottom right of the page. By hovering my pointer over the icon of i, presumably for information, on the bottom right of the screen just above the gray sidebar, I could temporarily see the name, date, and location of the painting. Unfortunately, the white text was impossible to read against lighter backgrounds.
Additionally, the images would sometimes get stuck, no longer clicking and dragging effectively. Sometimes, paintings on the sides would drag instead. Refreshing the page solved the issue. This section used either ambient music or the sound of a rough paintbrush on cavas as a soundtrack. The mute button for the ambiance is on the left side of the screen. I kept the sound muted for most of the tour, as I found the repetitive scratching to be annoying.
A theme of the self-guided tour was objects owned by Vermeer that frequently appeared in his paintings. This took about half of the button, as Vermeer owned many things, including Spanish chairs, tables, a mirror, windows, ceramic pitchers, curtains, an artisanal cabinet, maps, a yellow coat, ultramarine paint, and a gold leather wallcovering. Historians know what Vermeer owned because an inventory was taken after Catharina declared bankruptcy.
Another theme was research techniques. Restorationists used Short Wavelength Infrared Reflectance (SWIR) and X-rays to determine what appeared in layers of the paintings. Besides the inventory, documents such as censuses and maps gave a clearer idea of where Vermeer lived and painted. He began his paintings by sketching the outlines, then painted a lighting scheme, and finally added the reflections and shadows on top.
The third theme was theft. Unlike the carefully conducted studies, three Vermer paintings have been violently stolen. The Love Letter was badly damaged in 1971, while The Guitar Player was taken but found unharmed in 1974. Most famous was The Concert, a victim of the 1990 theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which last appeared in this blog during the book talk for The Lioness of Boston.
Conclusion
The gentle tone of the narrator and playful self-guided exploration of the paintings make this virtual tour an ideal activity for a middle school or high school art history lesson. Some paintings have adult themes, so teachers will want to review the tour to make sure the material is age-appropriate for their classroom. Adults who enjoy fine art would also appreciate this exhibit. People with low computer literacy may struggle with the self-guided portion of the tour and may prefer to view only the guided videos. The tours are best viewed on a large monitor, preferrably bigger than a standard laptop screen. I viewed the exhibit on a 21.5" monitor, which worked perfectly to see all the details of the high resolution images. While the website does work on mobile devices, looking at three inch tall Vermeer paintings is not an optimal viewing experience.
Abby Epplett’s Rating System
Experience: 9/10
Accessibility: 7/10