Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer of Delft (1632-1673) was one of the most talented painters of the Dutch Golden Age; yet there is very little substantiated information on this artist's life. In his introductory essay Brian Sewell discusses the mystery and the magic of Vermeer, also writing about Delft, the city of Vermeer's birth, working life and death, and its particular and peculiar position as an art centre, parochial in comparison with Amsterdam. Vermeer's techniques, pigments, his possible use of the camera obscura and his training and influences are also discussed. Brian Sewell takes the reader through the genres of paintings - the single figure in an interior, pictures that contain two or more figures and their greater pictorial complexity, and Vermeer's allegorical paintings. He explains the difficulties there are with attribution and the chronology of his paintings with so few signed or dated.