If you study fine arts or like art, if you travel to the Netherlands, you will definitely pay homage to three art museums: the Dutch National Museum in Amsterdam, the Van Boningen Art Gallery in Rotterdam, and the Royal Moretes Gallery in The Hague.
In the history of Western painting after the sixteenth century, people began to pay attention to the spiritual transformation from god to man, after all, due to economic conditions, most painters still took court stories and the needs of the nobility as the main subject of expression.
Entering the seventeenth century, the Netherlands ushered in its golden age, all aspects of development have reached its peak state, a large number of middle-class pregnant and born, in this context Dutch painters began to pay more attention to ordinary citizens, natural scenery, social customs and other subjects, and was used for home decoration, the size of the picture is not large, the history of art will be this period of Dutch painting works defined as the Dutch small school.
Wouldn't you say there are also the Van Gogh Museum and the Schiller Müller Museum? It is true that Van Gogh, as an almost household name Impressionist master, of course wants to visit his posthumous works, but a very important part of Dutch painting that can be recognized by the world is its unique Dutch small painting school, although "Night Watch" can be seen in the Dutch National Museum, and bruegel's "Babel Tower" can be seen in the Van Boningen Art Museum, but it still cannot hide the contribution of the Dutch small painting school to painting and art.
The Letter Writer Woman, 1665, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C
Diana and Her Fairies, 1653-1654, The Hague, Mauritheus Royal Gallery
The birth of each school of painting certainly has its adaptation to the sudden change of the general environment, this is an external factor, there is also a subtle push of the small environment, if you deeply appreciate the slow catalytic effect of this internal factor, I suggest you visit another small city in the Netherlands, Delft, silent here, you will be like enjoying the dream of Xitang, and as if you glimpse the Luzhi style, here not only was born the Royal Dutch Royal Blue Porcelain that can rival the blue and white porcelain of The Town of Meide, but also gave birth to johannes Vermeer, the representative of the Dutch Small Painting School.
The Old Bustard, 1656, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Officer and the Laughing Girl, 1657, Frick Collection, New York
Music Lessons, 1660, Royal Collection
I went on a special trip to Delft to find the scene in Vermeer's painting, "Delft Landscape" is a rare landscape painting left by the painter, it should belong to the south gate of the small city in the afternoon, there is no breeze around, the water reflects the sky piled up with rainbows, the two housewives whisper in this quiet atmosphere, water, city and sky constitute three stable parallel lines, in front of the towering church is the central square, slowly disappearing in the distant city with extreme eyes.
Landscapes of Delft, 1660-1661, The Royal Moretes Museum, The Hague
"The Little Street" is another small scene that reflects the life of the seventeenth century delft town, the same sunny afternoon, Vermeer's gaze stays in the cobblestone building across the street, the children play in front of the window, the women take care of the housework, this courtyard painting style belongs to his opponent Peter de Hoch's strengths, did not expect Vermeer to deal with more delicate, the fine treatment of red brick houses and vines, grasped by the depth of perspective from far and near, so that the hometown under his brush years quiet, Tranquility and leisurely.
The Little Street, 1657-1658, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Vermeer's surviving paintings are only about thirty, and throughout them, they can be summed up in one still word. Most of his painting subjects are genre paintings that reflect the living conditions of ordinary people, the sense of picture is idyllic and warm, and the characters in the paintings generally have an elegant hazy beauty, which has a lot to do with his creative mood of almost not leaving the small town of Delft, maintaining the eastern fence of picking chrysanthemums, and leisurely seeing Nanshan.
The Sleeping Maid, 1656-1657, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Young Woman Playing the Guitar 1670-1672 Kenwood House, London
Vermeer's short life was not smooth, and people did not find a detailed history of his ideas, only that he was born in a petty-bourgeois family, and should be a father who ran a hotel and engaged in the painting business had limited enlightenment for his future, until at the age of fifteen he studied painting from Karel Fabritius, a student of Rembrandt, and later joined the Guild of St. Luke as a formal painter.
The Mistress and the Maid, 1666-1667, Frick Collection, New York
Lace Woman, 1669-1670, Louvre, Paris
At first his paintings were only approved by the Delft Painters Guild, and after marriage his life was still difficult, fifteen children brought him great pressure, and his life was very poor, as a painter he did not even have a complete self-portrait, and could only find some ends in the will of his mother-in-law. In 1675, at the age of 43, Vermeer died prematurely, perhaps overwhelmed by life, perhaps in search of his dream garden of Eden, and like his teacher who died in an accident, he did not leave more for the world.
Love Letters, 1669-1670, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
The Young Woman with the Kettle, 1662, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Flute Girl, 1665, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C
Gold always shines, the time comes to nearly two hundred years after his death In 1866, the French art critic Theophil Torre Berg saw Vermeer's work "The Landscape of Delft" at the Morretes Art Museum in The Hague and was deeply fascinated by it, and felt that he spent a lot of time in the French "Fine Arts Magazine" to promote Vermeer, and then triggered many art critics and promoters to re-examine Vermeer's paintings, Vermeer finally and Rembrandt and Hals called the Dutch Golden Age painting three masters, Become a world-renowned master.
Theophile Torre Berg
Whether it was Rembrandt or Karel Fabritius, he successively used the fine painting method, and as a descendant disciple Vermeer, he learned this painting method to the extreme. In the art of painting, which is almost his second most exquisite work, not only does the ornate curtain that pulls the foreground corner away from the cloth used in the map hanging on the wall be separated by a very fine brushstroke of soft thickness, but even the map accurately reproduces the areas redivided by the religious separation of the provinces of the Netherlands, and Vermeer shows a superior sense of exuberance than that of his contemporaries through skillful techniques that highlight the subtle parts of the picture.
The Art of Painting, 1666-1668, Museum of Fine Arts and History, Vienna
The use of lines in Chinese paintings has been pure fire, while in Western paintings, lines are only part of the picture, and more importantly, the colors expressed by light reflect the charm of the whole work. From the natural genius Caravaggio to Rembrandt's favorite oblique side light, Vermeer prefers parallel light, and his grasp and treatment of light is really fearsome, "The Maid Who Poured Milk" is an important embodiment of Vermeer's use of light in his picture.
Vermeer belongs to the old-school Catholics, and the composition of the painting is generally more traditional, and the typical triangle shape of the maid who is pouring milk from the head to the skirt in the picture makes people look stable and dignified. Light from the left window curtain into the house naturally spread, in the wall, the room still life, the human body reflected in the texture and color are different, between light and dark is closer to the real original appearance of life, of course, as an artistic creation I think for the foreground bread and basket part of the brightening is also Vermeer's unique use of the visual language.
The Maid Who Poured Milk, 1685, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
In addition to light, Vermeer's other preference in his paintings is the use of large amounts of blue paint, looking at the wrinkled feeling of the girl's skirt in "The Woman Sitting in Front of the Vigkina", the feeling of the scientist's coat falling in "The Geographer" and "The Astronomer", and the different blue representations in "The Woman in Blue Who Reads letters" and "The Woman with the Balance", which is Vermeer's spiritual luxury. At that time, this natural ultramarine pigment came almost entirely from the remote mountain mining areas of Afghanistan, which was very expensive, but Vermeer's persistent use of it carried the warmth, coldness, texture and delicacy of the picture made the whole work catch people's attention in the contrast of the shades of blue.
Geographer, 1669, Museum of Saint Virtue, Germany
The Astronomer, 1668, at the Louvre, Paris
The Woman Sitting in Front of the Vigina, 1670-1672, National Gallery, London
The Woman in Blue Reading Letters, 1663, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
The Woman on the Balance, 1662-1663, National Gallery, Washington
Finally, come and enjoy the treasure of the town hall of the Royal Morretes Museum in The Hague, which is also synonymous with people when they think of Vermeer, known as the Northern Mona Lisa's "Girl with Pearl Earrings", one of my favorite five female portraits.
"Looking back at a smile of a hundred beautiful students, the six palaces of pink daisy have no color", Vermeer should not have read Bai Juyi's "Long Hate Song", "The Girl with pearl earrings" depicts a trace of charm in this poem. There is too much information to be found on the interpretation of the technique of this painting, and I prefer that this is Vermeer's transformation of the composition and design of the painting, like a one-hundredth of a second of time freeze-frame, only through the camera perspective to present the moment of eternity.
The Girl with the Pearl Earrings, 1665, The Hague, The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Moretés
The girl in the painting is completely a fictional character of the author, the soft cheeks are lined with wet and transparent lips, dressed in oriental style clothing, but wearing a Muslim turban, although there is a crystal round pearl hanging from the earlobe, but people's eyes are still attracted by the girl's clear and bright eyes, relatively looking, the front light not only shapes the transitional level of the girl's face, but also brings people an elegant beauty.
The Hague is just a half-hour drive from the small town of Delft, and if you follow the canal to The Wesstraat Street you will see the two-storey Vermeer Centre, where you can see all of Johannes Vermeer's works in chronological order, of course it is a digital high-definition replica. You can also learn about the use of dark box technology and painting pigments, family social background and other information, unfortunately the Vermeer Center does not treasure a vermeer's original manuscript, but still can not stop the Delft love for him, because Vermeer brought a small city to glory.