
In the documentary “Close to Vermeer”, about an exhibit on the painter Vermeer held at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, there is a part where Abbie Vandivere, an art conservator and researcher at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Netherlands, recalls how excited she was the first time she held Vermeer’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring. And you could feel her amazement! Even the thought of it made her eyes gleam. To think she actually got to touch the actual artfact! “Close to Vermeer” is a tender and evocative documentary-style film and there are plenty of people like Vandivere, who Peters calls passionate professionals, people who are practitioners at the very top of their fields.
The exposition covers many different issues. It explains the difficulties in organizing an exhibition of this scale (there are only 34 completed works, and they are all over the world). Furthermore, it goes heavily into the debates concerning “authorship” among several of the paintings that are certainly contested. Both positions argue why this painting should or shouldn’t be attributed to Vermeer. And these sorts of controversies do make news internationally, which is a relatively big achievement for a painter that was in near complete non-existence after his death for the following two centuries.
Vermeer’s other well-known associate ‘George Weber’ has also become an integral figure in ‘Close to Vermeer’ alongside the artist himself. Adding scholarship to add alongside the exhibit is a goal Weber, the curator of the Vermeer exhibition, seems to have. Simply arranging paintings in the walls is not enough. Perhaps he also wishes to finally put the long-standing debate surrounding Vermeer paintings to rest, while attempting to build a greater comprehension of the audience.
Weber claims one of his initial encounters with a Vermeer, when he was in his teenage years, to be as so: “I actually fainted”. Truly a remarkable statement. Although Mr. Weber seems to be very collected and sophisticated, it is not surprising to see a strong camaraderie with him. This particular issue street my attention: “[Vermeer] seems to know that warm yellow light has cold blue shadows.” The manner in which it is portrayed is meticulous. You will find nearly minute details of his work from the film; the cracks in the paint, the shadowy brush strokes, and the details. One of Wieber’s Co-curators, Pieter Roelofs makes deals with several museums all over the globe to lend out ‘their’ Vermeer paintings for the exhibition. It creates an incredibly fascinating inside glimpse of the high-stake underground politics.
In the contestation of these practical matters, there are ‘guides’ who help situate Johannes Vermeer diachronically. Like Abbie Vandivere and Jonathan Janson, she is a painter, or rather an authority on Vermeer. He is the person who draws attention to the folds on the yellow shawl of one of the challenged paintings when it is being discussed. He is not very positive about those details, he claims that they are too coarse. He has some ideas. These are the debates which Weber goes to consult with him. They devote some time to talk about the color palette, the shading, the brushwork, and the other enigmas still hanging about Vermeer, the era, his existence, and his art.
Compared to the life of Vermeer, we are much more acquainted with Rembrandt, who was an active contmporary of Vermeer. Many of Rembrandt’s great shadowy oil portraits are reminiscent of Italian art and he often painted his own face into the canvas, as if documenting himself in the midst of Dutch Golden Age. Throughout his life, Remrmand enjoyed great success.
Vermeer’s life on the other fared a bit different. He was not as popular or prolific as Rembrandt and his success was quite modest. These traits are well reflected in his paintings, which are all small in size and macro in concept. His paintings feature the same exquisitely rendered rooms in intricate detail. A single composition depicts identical light sources, the same utensils, and maybe even the same people he knew intimately; his primary subjects were women he considered amost family. There is no distance in approach from his subjects, no idealization or overt flattery. His subjects are posed in daly life, making lace, playing the virginal, or drinking wine. These are not “court” paintings. The experts here are all very good teachers.
There’s something calming about “Close to Vermeer.” For one, I am the daughter of a very enthusiastic rare book collector. One who used to spend every moment of his free time tracking down books (most of which were by Irish authors, especially Francis Stuart). He’d show us the copy right page of the new book he managed to acquire. He had a certain relevance to the book that he managed to acquire. For him, books were full of stories. So, treating the books with respect and turning pages was always done with gentleness. This is the air I breathed as a child. And so there’s something soothing about listening people share their knowledge and trying to explain the things they consider rare or special–unique or valuable.
In a world of so-called “hot takes” and misinformed so-called “takedowns” where quasi-expertise is the order of the day, the experts of “Close to Vermeer” happen to be a comforting bunch. They are a lot, they share what they know, and so they don’t just let us “look” at a Vermeer but see.
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