Who Was Vermeer?
About the artist whose masterful paintings are integral to our world premiere of THE CRAFTSMAN.
“Would you — in your role as critic and scholar — call this
painting a national treasure?”
“All Vermeers are.”–The Craftsman by Bruce Graham
Originally produced during Lantern Theater Company’s 2017/18 season and streaming March 2–28, 2021 as part of our new Plays from the Lantern Archives program, The Craftsman centers the work of one of art history’s more elusive and beloved figures: Johannes Vermeer. Now considered one of the Dutch Old Masters among a company of artists that include Rembrandt, Vermeer was essentially ignored until the 1860s. Who was Vermeer and why is his work so cherished now, more than 300 years after his death?
Vermeer was born in 1632 in Delft, a bustling city in the Netherlands known for its tapestries, pottery, and breweries. His father was a successful weaver, innkeeper, and art dealer, and the young Vermeer was likely exposed to many great paintings through his father’s business. In 1653, he converted to Catholicism to marry Catharina Bolnes, with whom he had eleven children.
Beyond that, however, little is known of Vermeer’s youth or career. We do not know how he came to be a painter, where he studied, or who his teachers were. There are theories, including his spending time in Italy or studying under important Delft artists, but none of these positions can be confirmed or proven by the historical record. All we have are his masterful paintings.
Even his works are shrouded in mystery. Whereas Rembrandt — perhaps the greatest of the Dutch Old Masters — was stunningly prolific, leaving behind a catalogue of hundreds of paintings and thousands of drawings, the number of confirmed Vermeer paintings surviving today is currently just 34, with the attribution of three additional paintings still up for debate. Scholars estimate perhaps another ten existed at one point and are either lost or destroyed, bringing the maximum tally of his paintings to 47.
This scarcity of paintings contributed both to Vermeer’s relative obscurity and to his current adoration. Essentially ignored during his lifetime, the few paintings he left behind when he died in 1675 at age 43 were kept by private collectors or assigned to other artists. In 1866, French painter-critic Étiene-Joseph-Théophile Thoré investigated these false attributions and published enthusiastic descriptions of Vermeer’s work. The time was right for Vermeer’s reintroduction and his popularity skyrocketed, turning his rare paintings from niche treasures to international sensations.
Once his paintings were firmly enshrined among the masterpieces of his contemporaries, nowhere was his work more valued than in the Netherlands, his home. By the beginning of World War II, the Netherlands was hungry for Dutch cultural treasures that would separate them from the Germans. Vermeer’s masterpieces became a particular symbol of Dutch pride, and museums hid his paintings for safekeeping to ensure they would remain in the Netherlands where they belonged through whatever upheaval the war would bring.
But other than their scarcity, what was it that made Vermeers so treasured as art? His work is characterized by incredible, painstaking attention to detail, which perhaps contributed to his small output. His paintings are also especially prized for their treatment of light, often coming in from a window to the left of the subject and affecting every element of the scene. His subjects, too, are celebrated, as he often painted domestic scenes centered on women living lives recognizable to Delft citizens: reading a letter, playing a lute, weighing gold. Each one is deeply expressive, eliciting sympathy and perhaps a sense of relationship with the viewer, who is often placed in the position of a voyeur. The paintings are enlivened by Vermeer’s extraordinary use of color, especially blues and yellows.
Once his paintings were recognized as masterpieces, the discovery of new Vermeers shook the art world to its foundations in the early 20th century, creating a fervor — and a market — for more. It is in this artistic climate that Bruce Graham’s The Craftsman examines the work. Vermeer’s unique style, his treasured output, and the Dutch pride in his work are at the core of the play, and form the backbone for Graham’s tale of ambition, genius, and deception.
The Craftsman is part of Plays from the Lantern Archives, a new program celebrating some of the finest productions from recent Lantern seasons, brought vividly back to life on screen. This world premiere performance was professionally filmed with a live theater audience in November 2017, and is streaming March 2–28, 2021. Visit our website for tickets and information.
