Johannes Vermeer or Jan Vermeer (baptized October 31, 1632, died December 15, 1675) was a Dutch Baroque painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of ordinary life. His entire life was spent in the town of Delft. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial painter in his lifetime. He seems to have never been particularly wealthy, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death.
Virtually forgotten for nearly two hundred years, in 1866 the art critic Thoré Bürger published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him (only 35 paintings are firmly attributed to him today). Since that time Vermeer’s reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age, and is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.
I love Vermeer’s work. We saw some of his paintings at the art museum in Washington D.C. last year. I also read the book Girl with the Pearl Earing, which was based on the first painting here.
Oddly enough I was looking at that movie on netflix earlier. I may have to read the book instead, they are always better.
The book was definitely better than the movie in my estimation. They left a lot out of the movie…it seems they usually do.