Jan Vermeer, The Complete Works

This film looks at Vermeer's life and works, his early influences, his compositional and painterly methods, his major themes, and his development over the two decade period he painted in Delft.

[@cavlizzy]

I have seen about half of his paintings.... and they are exquisite! Drawing your eye in and holding your attention. I have visited the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague at least 4 times just to view his works there!

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

Many thanks - you piqued my interest in, among other things, the other locations of Vermeer’s recognized work. I got a bit involved and compiled this list - New York Met (5), NY Frick (3), NGA Washington (4), NG London (2), Kenwood House London (1), Windsor Castle, near London (1), Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (4), Hague Mauritshuis (3), Berlin Gemaldegalerie (2), Dresden Gemaldegalerie 2, Paris Louvre (2), NGS Edinburgh (1), NGI Dublin (1), KHM Vienna (1), SK Frankfurt-Am-Main (1) HAUM Brunswick (1). I have a lot of travelling to do!

[@cavlizzy]

@@johnobriensarthistorychannel - I have seen his works at the Met (NY), Rijks museum, Nat'l Gallery in London, Berlin Gemaldegalerie, Dresden Gemaldegalerie, and the Louvre. I was lucky enough to see "The Art of Painting" from Vienna while it was on loan to the Mauritshuis in The Hague! I am from Texas but we got to live in Belgium for several years which afforded me many opportunities to visit many museums overseas. I am a HUGE art history lover. (as you can probably tell). Berlin & Dresden have fabulous museums and can easily be seen on the same vacation. We drove from Brussels to Dresden then to Berlin. We also made the short trip to Potsdam to see the Sans Souci Palace & Caravaggio's "Doubting Thomas" painting basically next door. (love Caravaggio as well!) We were only in London for 6 days, so I missed the Kenwood House. But did get to the Courtauld, the Wallace, Nat'l Gallery, British Museum, & the touristy locations. My kids were only 4 & 8 y/o at the time & they were great sports at being dragged all over. (including Egypt, which they loved) Lol Thanks for your response. :) ps: I have traveled all over The Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Egypt, etc.. if I can answer any questions for you regarding travel.. I would be glad to!

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

I've yet to visit Washington, Dresden, Frankfurt or Brunswick, but would like to at some stage. Glad you saw the NGL and British Museum when you were here, and I'm sure you saw some great works when you were in Belgium. My research focuses on Baroque Rome - would I be right in guessing that you went to Rome when you were in Italy?

[@cavlizzy]

@@johnobriensarthistorychannel Yes, I have been to Rome 4 times. (about 5 days each time) So much to see & re-see! I was once mistaken for a tour guide inside the Sistine chapel as I explained Michelagelo's Last Judgement to my in-laws. A group of ladies approached me (who were already on a tour) and ask me to repeat some things they heard me talking about that their guide did not mention. (I was telling the story about why Minos has the face of Biagio da Cesena & also why Michelangelo put his face on St. Bartholomew) My dad is an attorney but he also has a degree in art history. So I grew up traveling Europe with him & he explained a lot to me. I have since read MANY books on the subject. *I would esp. research museums & locations before we went. (I needed to be able to keep my children engaged & not bored) For example, if I was showing my kids a painting by Seurat, I would get them very close & ask what they saw... they would yell "DOTS!"... then I would back them up about 8 feet & have them tell me what they saw after. They found games like this fun. They esp. loved Hans Holbein's painting of The Ambassadors with the "hidden" 3-D skull in the rug at the NGL. *I also took a small pair of binoculars for them to view the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.* The ceiling being 68 feet up in the air made this more fun & easy to see! These tricks that I did for my kids also helped me to remember many details as well. :) Yes, there is much great work in Belgium. Loved Brugge (Michelangelo's Madonna), Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent (Van Eyck's triptych), etc...

[@Elizabeth-yg2mg]

​@cavlizzy I would like to be one of your kids!

[@reginacampbell413]

Wonderful . loved it!!

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

Many thanks for your kind comment, I'm glad you liked it!

[@gowanhewlett745]

Excellent presentation.......simply excellent. Thankyou

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

You're welcome, and many thanks for the very kind comment.

[@videocatalao]

I love the walls

[@EdwardHopperNightHawks]

...subtle tone of voice ;)

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

Apologies for the confusion with the titles at 30:14 and 30:18.

[@suziemarvin8077]

Beautiful John - thank you@

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

Thank you very much!

[@ioncodrescu2889]

Thank you.

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

You're very welcome.

[@MARKCC1330]

Your best one yet! Excellent.

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

Doc! Many thanks for the comment, I'm glad you liked the video. The first few minutes are heavily indebted to Anthony Bailey's 'A View of Delft' (Random House, London 2001). Hmm. I wonder how much mail addressed to 'Random House, London' gets misdelivered.

[@Edeskenney]

I’ve seen two of them in Dresden.

[@stuartgraca]

I find it impossible to believe that Vermeer did not do extensive drawings , his precision of form is not what you can achieve by directly designing the image on the canvas. Yet I understand there are no sketches or drawings and a lack of early student works. I have made many copues if his paintings and appreciate how carefully he calculated the composition and the subtlety of the details in telling the story.

[@paulwoodford1984]

Do you sell your copies of his works ?

[@stuartgraca]

@@paulwoodford1984 Like a lot of painters there is a desire to feel in the position of the artist, I have given most of my copies to friends, although there was one sketch, painted, of the girl with a pearl earring that I sold because some one was so keen on it, and I also sold a Mona Lisa painting which I had made to recreate the painting as it would have been first seen, clean and bright. Friends in Brazil have a Caravaggio Last Supper and the Vermeer girl with a guitar . In the 1970’s I was a free lance scene painter in London and I recreated quite a few early Renaissance images, like Mantegna and Giotto . Its like furniture, selling my own hand made furniture as always been difficult, but a copy of a Chippendale will sell easily.

[@spactick]

Imagine living in that time with no TV, no radio, no automobiles, no airplanes, no telephones, no refrigeration, no running water etc; YUCK! NO THANKS, great that good ol Jan left us some incredible paintings but I'll take this period over that any day of the week

[@jackkomisar458]

The astronomer and the geographer may be portraits of Leeuwenhoek, but I doubt it. Portraits of Leeuwenhoek, whom we would now call a microbiologist, exist, and they don't look like the man in these pictures. Among other things, Leeuwenhoek had curly hair and a small mustache.

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

I'm inclined to agree with you regarding the resemblance, although in the Verkolje portrait of c.1686 from which the engraved copies derive, Leeuwenhoek was generally though to have been wearing a wig, and was nearly two decades older than when the Astronomer and Geographer were painted in 1668, so the moustache could have been grown after the Vermeers. However, Leeuwenhoek being willing to act as executor of Vermeer's will is one thing, but sitting for him as an anonymous model when already an important Chamberlain in his own right seems incongruous. Many thanks for posting.

[@le3423]

Thank you for the marvelous content, but may I suggest a less mechanical voice rythm. It is very difficult to listen to the repeated monotone intonations for so long. They rob us from the enjoyment of the information being conveyed.

[@videocatalao]

Thank you for this. Isn't there a painting depicting a woman with a flute ? a painting resembling the one with the woman with red hat ?

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

You're welcome, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, which owns the 'Girl With a Flute' (c.1670), lists it as being by an associate of Vermeer.

[@videocatalao]

Thank you again. But the model has got to be the same. It has to be the same woman, the same face.

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

Yes, it appears to be the same model, which is perfectly feasible if the painter of 'Girl With a Flute' was associated with Vermeer.

[@videocatalao]

Thanks again for your time.@@johnobriensarthistorychannel

[@jpkatz1435]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@johnobriensarthistorychannel]

😊😊😊😊😊

[@henkmarks8856]

You mean Johannes Vermeer.

[@AHydrant]

Yes, using Jan for Johannes is like calling Albert Einstein, "Bert". The Essential Vermeer site says "His Christian name "Johannes" (or Joannis or Johannis) was favored over the prosaic "Jan" by Catholics and upper-class Protestants. Vermeer never used the name Jan."