In the history of painting, Johannes Vermeer is regarded as a legend despite having created just thirty-four masterpieces in his brief career of fewer than twenty years. He was a very well-liked painter in his homeland of Delft, the Netherlands, but he never had the opportunity to travel. He was renowned for being the first painter in the seventeenth century to have employed the pricey lapis lazuli stone’s ultramarine colour on such a wide scale. He painted in the manner of other “Golden Age” masters, with portraits and commonplace subjects constituting a large portion of his output.
He experimented with landscapes and allegorical paintings as well, offering a variety of topics in each of his paintings. Even though he was a well respected painter of the day, he was nonetheless subject to the same impacts of war as everyone else. Hendrick van Buyten, a baker who owned the paintings as collateral for his loans, had given him loans at the conclusion of his career and life, which contributed significantly to his enormous debt. Johannes’ poverty and the stress of supporting an eleven-member family were eventually to blame for his despair and eventual death.
Johannes Vermeer Biography
- Born in Delft, Netherlands, on October 16, 1632
- Delft, Netherlands, December 1675
- Catharina Bolnes (m. 1653–1675), spouse
- Maria Vermeer,Franciscus Vermeer, Cornelia Vermeer, and MORE
- Parents: Digna Baltens and Reynier Janszoon Vermeer
- Vermeer siblings: Geertruy
Johannes Vermeer Paintings
#1 Young Woman with a Water Pitcher
#2 Woman with a Lute
#3 The Music Lesson
#4 View of Delft
#5 The Girl with a Wine Glass
#6 The Little Street
#7 The Glass of Wine
#8 Girl Interrupted in her Music
#9 The Milkmaid
#10 Officer and Laughing Girl
#11 Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window
#12 A Maid Asleep
#13 Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
#14 Diana and her Companions
Johannes Vermeer Cause of Death
At the age of fifty-seven, Johann Vermeer, a Dutch artist of the Baroque era, passed away from heart illness. His career was only somewhat successful, but as he became known for his inner home scenes of middle-class living, his reputation skyrocketed to worldwide proportions.
Despite specialising on middle-class home scenes, he was a rather successful provincial genre painter who gained notoriety in Delft and The Hague. Although the exact reason of Johannes Vermeer’s passing is unknown, depression or death are probably to blame.
Even though he passed away at the age of only 43, nothing is known about his legacy. The Hague and Delft both acknowledged the Dutch painter for his paintings, and many people believe he had a significant impact on the development of art history. His sister Geertruy was about twelve years older than his boys, and his wife gave birth to fifteen children in all.
It’s hard to say how Vermeer passed away. Although there is no proof, his family members have made assumptions about the reason for his death. According to his will paperwork, he was baptised as a Reformed Christian and passed away from a stroke. His death is still seen as terrible, nevertheless. It is unknown if he had any prior medical conditions or if he had a mental ailment at the root of his symptoms.
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Johannes Vermeer Paintings
Middle-class ladies were often the most frequent topics of Vermeer’s work, and they were shown in both casual scenes and incredibly realistically rendered portraits. His use of light in the paintings to emphasise his subjects in profoundly emotive ways set him apart from other painters. His paintings of private, personal scenes between ladies indoors were incredibly accurate in style. He added tiny white spots in specific locations to provide the impression of extra texture and glitter where it was needed. He utilised very rich colours to make an intense effect on the viewers.
The subjects of Johannes Vermeer’s paintings originally included mythical and biblical historical subjects. After completing these considerably bigger oil paintings, he turned his attention to creating commissioned works of art, such as cityscapes, by combining light and shadow with a partially clouded sky to highlight depth. Despite the fact that his most well-known work, The Girl With The Pearl Earring, is unusually set against a full black backdrop, his primary attention was on women going about their regular everyday routines.
Johannes Vermeer Self Portrait
In the early years of Vermeer research, a number of paintings were believed to be self portraits by the artist.
Thoré Burger mistakenly credited to Vermeer a self-portrait by an artist that is now known to be Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705), thinking it was identical to a Vermeer self-portrait that was purchased for 480 guilders at a live auction in The Hague in 1780.
Johannes Vermeer Baroque
At the age of fifty-seven, Johann Vermeer, a Dutch artist of the Baroque era, passed away from heart illness. His career was only somewhat successful, but as he became known for his inner home scenes of middle-class living, his reputation skyrocketed to worldwide proportions. Despite specialising on middle-class home themes, he was a rather successful provincial genre painter who gained notoriety in Delft and The Hague.
Johannes Vermeer Wife
Vermeer and Van Ruijven were good friends. Regarding Van Ruijven’s spouse, we are aware that she left 500 florins to Vermeer in her testament. This amount was equivalent to the price of one to three pricey cabinet portraits. It could have been unusual to leave such a legacy to an outsider painter.
Therefore, it qualifies as a specific expression of respect and dedication to the artist’s welfare. Maria de Knuijt may have been speaking on her husband’s behalf, but it’s clear that she brought a much larger financial contribution to the union, thus her preferences had to be taken into consideration. In fact, many other topics, including Dutch home settings, were created with women’s eyes in humble opinion as much as those of men.
Johannes Vermeer Artworks
- The Girl With The Pearl Earring
- View of Delft
- The Love Letter
- Allegory of Faith
- The Astronomer
- Woman Holding a Balance
- The Girl With the Wineglass
- The Music Lesson (a.k.a. Lady at the Virginals With a Gentleman)
- The Milkmaid
- The Lacemaker
