In Amsterdam, Vermeer as you’ve never seen him

Admittedly, never have so many paintings by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) been brought together under one roof. Never as much as at the Rijksmuseum, in this exhibition presented these days! Even his major retrospective of 1995, organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Mauritshuis in The Hague, would be outdated, it which had only 22 paintings out of the 35 which were then attributed to him.

In this world where the excess of numbers seems a measure of quality, it can be argued that of the 35, 36 or perhaps even 37 surviving works out of the fifty that the master would have created, 28 of them are in the capital From the Netherlands. Well, almost… Because these days, we should really talk about 27 works, since since the 1^er April, the famous Young woman with a pearl returned home to the Mauristhuis in The Hague after a guest appearance. However, the exhibition continues for several more weeks.

Note also that among the notorious absentees, there are all the samethe astronomer, who will not move from the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the art of painting, of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna — which simply refused to take part in the event —, music lesson, stayed at Windsor Castle, The sleeping young woman And The young woman with the ewerboth in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

We politely mentioned the too great fragility of some of these paintings, even if several have traveled in recent years.

But hey, all the tickets sold out within days. The Rijksmuseum even had to add more and open the rooms dedicated to this exhibition in the evening. We can only imagine the number of postcards, posters, fridge magnets, notebooks, bags, scarves, candles and other Vermeer pillows that will sell!

Contribution to art history

Of course, it is a great pleasure to be able to browse the panorama constituted by all these paintings, almost all exceptional, gathered here. However, this exhibition does not include any work by another artist. This would have captured Vermeer’s aesthetic contribution.

This project seems to invite us to a “pure” utopian experience of masterpieces. This exhibition is built in a thematic and very chronological way, in fact in a very classic way, not to say very conservative and simple.

The explanatory panels are very descriptive, tempting slight interpretations here and there on the meaning of certain objects or poses, but without any real desire for re-reading. Longer explanatory panels would certainly have slowed down the flow of visitors…

Moreover, the museum has decided not to really evoke in the exhibition the polemics of attribution around Saint Praxedethe National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, The young woman with the flutethe National Gallery of Art in Washington, or The young woman with the virginal, from the Leiden collection in New York—a painting long considered fake—perhaps the only painting by Vermeer owned by a private collector. It will be understood that this must have pleased the lenders.

So we had three more Vermeers and a clearer record, an unbeatable sales weapon if we are to believe the reaction of the media and the public.

But what really about Vermeer’s contribution to the art of the 17th^e century, of his technique and even of the profound meaning of certain more enigmatic works?

However, the interpretations on the art of this painter are not lacking. We could even evoke that of the artist David Hockney, who argued with intelligence that Vermeer used a camera obscura which includes lenses. Of course, Vermeer’s art is not limited to the use of lenses, but let’s say that he found in them an ally for his scintillating optical effects.

So how do you get a deeper reading of his work? The catalog – already almost impossible to find in French and English – is more elaborate. And it will also be necessary to obtain the test Johannes Vermeer: ​​Faith, Light and Reflection, by Gregor JM Weber (co-curator of the exhibition), who performs a religious and Jesuit reading of the work of Vermeer, a convert to Catholicism.

See for real?

To see all these people queuing to admire, to venerate the works in person, we reflected on the fragility of the cliché that wants the virtual world to replace reality…

But, on the other hand, what about the possibility of seeing these masterpieces in person, an incomparable experience if ever there was one? This may turn out to be more complex than common sense would dictate.

All the works, under glass, were placed behind a kind of railing, a balustrade, which kept the amateurs at a more than respectable distance. Given the stifling number of visitors and the size of some works — The young woman in the red hat measures 23 cm by 18 cm and The young woman with the flute20 cm by 18 cm — the pictorial effects were lost in a distance that even the zoom of a smartphone could not grasp.

What we are about to say will seem like sacrilege to some, the commentary of a vandal to others, but some high-resolution images on the museum’s website allow us to capture these paintings better, with more detail, than their direct view. in the context of this blockbuster.

This phenomenon, you will allow me to qualify it as Jocondism, because no one, for a long time, can really look at the Monna Lisa at the Louvre… Consequently, we will take advantage of this to stop stupidly criticizing the images and the various instruments that make it possible to distribute the originals.

Vermeer in New York

But don’t worry… If you weren’t able to go to Amsterdam to admire these masterpieces, there will be other opportunities to see several Vermeers at once, without going to Europe. You should know that in New York, between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection (which, in 2024, will reopen on the 70^e Rue), there are eight paintings by Vermeer grouped together. And the last time we went to watch the Vermeers at the Met, we were just a few admirers walking up to them, without queuing. The masterpieces were at your fingertips… In real life.

To see in video