Is this Vermeer’s Greatest Painting?
The ineffable perfection of View of Delft
The Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer is well known for his superbly arranged interior scenes. But occasionally the artist would paint outdoor subjects too. One such painting, titled View of Delft, may well be one of the best paintings he made during his lifetime.
I must admit to having an especially strong fondness for this work. The reason being that I find the painting to be utterly beguiling in its simplicity, composition and exquisite treatment of light and atmosphere.
Take a moment to look at the image. It is roughly square, with the lower half of the work showing a view across a stretch of water to a row of buildings and warehouses. The other half is given over to a partially clouded sky.
The first thing to notice is how Vermeer has placed the townscape and the clouds into alignment: see how the V-shape in the middle of the town buildings is repeated and echoed in the clouds directly above, most clearly in the darkest cloud at the top, whose form has an obvious upturned V-shaped cleft midway along.
