History greets the world’s curiosity about Vermeer, the exquisite 17th century Dutch painter, with almost perfect silence. Though it now seems impossible, after the death of Johannes Ver Meer in 1675, and the auction of his paintings in 1696, the Master of Delft was completely forgotten. The youngest of the Dutch masters’ paintings disappeared into private collections, were attributed to his contemporaries, or were lost entirely.
It was not until the middle of the 19th century that a French art critic, Théophile Thoré, took it upon himself to resurrect the name and reputation of Vermeer. Nevertheless, Vermeer’s 170-year oblivion was sufficient to erase all but a few scant details of his life. None of the usual biographical evidence—letters, journals, contemporaries’ recollections—has survived to suggest what he was like, how he looked, what he thought about his work or about anything. It is known that Vermeer had eleven children and is believed that he used a camera obscura.
Thanks to the French critic, interest in Vermeer was running high in 1871, when Marcel Proust was born and began his lifelong study of memory and humanity. His creation, Charles Swann, one of the most refined men in Paris and a central character in Remembrance of Things Past (In Search of Lost Time), is forever writing an essay on Vermeer. However, over time, Swann degenerates into “one of the most beautiful talkers of his age,” and his essay dies with him.
Proust’s narrator is obsessed with questions about the past such as: What were the evenings at the Verdurins like, when Swann so often dined there with Odette de Crécy? Where is the person I used to be? Or what was Albertine doing yesterday afternoon with her girlfriend Andrée? But for him the question without possible answer—Who was Vermeer?—is no more opaque than these others.
To have seen one of Vermeer’s actual canvases is to be convinced of Proust’s argument that one need not know who great artists were to be profoundly affected by their art. The details of Vermeer’s life are hidden in the advancing shadows of Time Lost, but his paintings, all of unspeakable beauty, are still brilliantly alive with light.
—Richard Voorhees
It was not until the middle of the 19th century that a French art critic, Théophile Thoré, took it upon himself to resurrect the name and reputation of Vermeer. Nevertheless, Vermeer’s 170-year oblivion was sufficient to erase all but a few scant details of his life. None of the usual biographical evidence—letters, journals, contemporaries’ recollections—has survived to suggest what he was like, how he looked, what he thought about his work or about anything. It is known that Vermeer had eleven children and is believed that he used a camera obscura.
Thanks to the French critic, interest in Vermeer was running high in 1871, when Marcel Proust was born and began his lifelong study of memory and humanity. His creation, Charles Swann, one of the most refined men in Paris and a central character in Remembrance of Things Past (In Search of Lost Time), is forever writing an essay on Vermeer. However, over time, Swann degenerates into “one of the most beautiful talkers of his age,” and his essay dies with him.
Proust’s narrator is obsessed with questions about the past such as: What were the evenings at the Verdurins like, when Swann so often dined there with Odette de Crécy? Where is the person I used to be? Or what was Albertine doing yesterday afternoon with her girlfriend Andrée? But for him the question without possible answer—Who was Vermeer?—is no more opaque than these others.
To have seen one of Vermeer’s actual canvases is to be convinced of Proust’s argument that one need not know who great artists were to be profoundly affected by their art. The details of Vermeer’s life are hidden in the advancing shadows of Time Lost, but his paintings, all of unspeakable beauty, are still brilliantly alive with light.
—Richard Voorhees
