The Deft Dauber of Delft

摘要

Johannes Vermeer (1632-75) is a "why bother?" artist. That's a compliment. It means that after you've looked at his typically small paintings for a while (in this case, 21 of his 35 known extant pictures at Washington's National Gallery of Art, through Feb. 11), you wonder why anybody bothered to paint any more oils. Everything noble and beautiful one could possibly want in a picture is present in Vermeer. He's the best composer, ever. A Vermeer brick wall resonates with as much a feeling of red as a Matisse interior does. His realism looks practically scientific. (Vermeer, who used a camera obscura to study the play of light on objects, was an acquaintance of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the first scientist to regard bacteria and blood cells through a microscope.) But he imaginatively recombined elements, particularly architecture, to create his scenes. Vermeer's psychology (the anticipating glance in the 1666 "Girl With a Pearl Earring," for example) can be as haunting as Rembrandt's. A square foot of a Vermeer equals, esthetically, an acre of Rubens.