Vermeer at Rijksmuseum: The Old Master Visits Amsterdam 

Within a week after the opening of Vermeer on February 11, the 450,000 allotted tickets were sold out online, requiring Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum to extend hours to 10pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. Less is more applies to just about every aspect of the blockbuster exhibition, except for the unprecedented (yet anticipated) visitor response. 

Despite their best intentions, the Rijksmuseum cannot guarantee how long someone stands in front of an artwork snapping photos from their smartphone. Although, I am here to report that some attendees are practically skating through the galleries, happy just to snap and run; I can confirm: WE WERE THERE.

Vermeer the Exhibition 

Described in one review as the ‘’largest ever exhibition, never to be experienced again,” it is indeed exceptional to visit a ‘retrospective’ of just 28 paintings. Many visitors have come to see the usual suspects: Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Milkmaid, The Lacemaker, and A Lady Writing a Letter. As you enter each gallery space, you will indeed be reacquainted with these iconic women, but there will be more to discover and equally astonish. 

The exhibition’s designer, Jean-Michel Wilmotte, is a French architect who selected the sumptuously subtle color palette, which serves to enhance rather than compete with the power of the paintings. The artworks range in size from petite to un peu petite. Heavy velvet curtains in variations of ultramarine, emerald, violet and burgundy (like the walls of the galleries) have been installed to muffle the sound. To permit secure inspection and finesse crowd flow, a semicircular balustrade has been installed around each viewing point. There are minimal texts to read, no works to compare by other artists, and no videos vying for your attention. Benches are not in the middle, but rather off to the side. 

Rijksmuseum’s curators, Pieter Roelofs and Gregor J.M. Weber, deserve acknowledgement for this meticulous and conscientious labor of love. Acquiring loans from other prestigious art institutions was a costly, time-consuming and logistical nightmare. Other daunting challenges included the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna demurred on The Art of Painting (1668), which the exhibition catalog lists as “his most important work.” The Astronomer remains on loan to the Musée du Louvre Abu Dhabi, while Maid Asleep, and Girl With a Veil are from the permanent collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art. Also, King Charles (yes, Prince Harry’s father) withheld a few pieces. *See a list of remaining paintings not in the exhibition below. 

Vermeer’s Artwork

Arriving at the Rijksmuseum always feels like a majestic experience. The magic shines through in the sweep of the staircase, the effortless connection of architecture from different centuries, the collective hush and rumble of anticipation and enthusiasm in the air. As you enter the Vermeer exhibition, there are but two paintings to welcome you. View of Delft (1660-61) and View of Houses in Delft, known as The Little Street (1658-9). 

View of Delft is a cityscape of the painter’s hometown and a departure from his more intimate interior paintings. Regarded as one of his masterpieces for its subject matter and pointillist technique, it is divided into four sections: the quay, the water, the town, and the sky. An early morning moment with dramatic puffy clouds hovering– a distant clock shows that it is just past seven. There is a mother and baby, a few well-dressed people chatting, the tower of the Old Church, the Ramparts, City Gates, and Delft harbor, linked to nearby rivers. One finds the usual ingredients of cities depicted in travel guides, but here the atmosphere is alive with anticipation as a new day dawns.

The Little Street is another exceptional painting in Vermeer’s precious oeuvre. It is a portrait of ordinary, well-worn houses. Outside, things are ordered and balanced, from the weathered bricks to the Double Dutch windows. Women are at work, cleaning, sewing, while children occupy themselves in this ‘day in the life’ miniature. What I love about this painting is the ‘photo realistic’ impact which Vermeer managed to create– long before a camera was even imagined. The sensual experience of that moment frozen in time– imagining the birdsong, the scent of an apple pie wafting through a window, the arrival of a ship in the harbor, the sound of a chiming church tower. That is the quiet power of Johannes Vermeer.

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, on loan from Gemäldegalerie in Germany, is displayed in its own gallery, to better show off a painstaking and revealing restoration. The painting depicts a young woman enjoying a private moment, bathed in the morning light, still dressed in her night jacket. The shadows play on her face, her hands. Zones of light appear differently in the foreground than the background. Look closely and you can see her reflection in the window. The pilling of the Ottoman rug, the folds in the curtain, glint of light on the fruit bowl. For at least 250 years, the back wall seemed to be empty, but in 2021, conservators removed an area of ‘overpainting’ that revealed a robust Cupid ready to unite hearts.

All About Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer was a painter from the Baroque period born in Delft, Netherlands. He specialized in domestic interior scenes (provincial genre) of daily upper middle-class life and was relatively successful. Reportedly completing one painting each year, Vermeer produced 37 paintings during his short life of 43 years. Yet for two centuries after his death in 1675, his work went unnoticed. In 1881, Girl with a Pearl Earring was sold at a local auction for two guilders (equivalent to a dollar). The internationally acclaimed work has inspired novels, a film, and reached iconic proportions with Madison Avenue imitations, Halloween costumes, as well as being likened to a Dutch version of the Mona Lisa. Today, it is valued at a multimillion dollar level.

Vermeer was a master of the sleight of hand. Restraint is an important element in his compositions. He was an alchemist of color, light, detail, recreating images, transforming and inventing. He developed new ways of depicting interiors, adding or subtracting elements, like clues, about the figures and the objects in secluded spaces. Vermeer invites us to witness interactions, observe moments of solitude, and speculate on the stance (and circumstance) of his subjects. More eavesdropper than voyeur, he invites the viewer to be part of the conspiracy, to draw our own conclusion, make our own opinion about what is taking place. He is more of a reconstructionist than realist, interpreting rather than imitating. 

In the catalog, the curators mention that Vermeer converted to his wife’s Catholic faith during a time when public Catholic worship was forbidden in the heavily Protestant Netherlands. This fact may provide insight into a group of allegorical paintings which I had never seen before: Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Diana and her Nymphs, and Saint Praxedis. 

Closer to Johannes Vermeer

The Rijksmuseum has created a digital Vermeer experience, available for free to Vermeer lovers around the world. British actor and author Stephen Fry will guide online visitors to explore the artist’s work and personal life, providing fascinating stories and facts about the man and his work. Using the latest available technology, visitors will be able to zoom in on the tiniest pigment particles in pin-sharp detail via ultra-high-resolution photographs of Vermeer paintings. The experience also offers a rare opportunity to compare recurring motifs throughout Vermeer’s paintings: from pearls and yellow jackets, to curtains and maps, and his use of ultramarine blue and ochre.

It’s noteworthy that in these chaotic times of technology overload in the Digital Age, this modest Dutch Master has created a timeless body of work that invites us to tune in, reflect, and remind ourselves that an enriched and satisfying life is all about the details.

Vermeer Paintings not in the exhibition:

1. A Maid Asleep, 1656-57, oil on canvas

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

2. Girl with a Veil, 1664-67, oil on canvas

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

3. Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman, known as ‘The Music Lesson’, c. 1662–64, oil on canvas

The Royal Collection Trust, Windsor/London

4. The Art of Painting, c. 1666-68, oil on canvas

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna

5. The Astronomer, 1668, oil on canvas

Musée du Louvre, Abu Dhabi

6. The Concert, c. 1663-66, oil on canvas

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (stolen)

7. The Girl with the Wine Glass, c. 1659-61, oil on canvas

Herzog Anton Ulrich-museum, Braunschweig

8. The Guitar Player, c. 1671–72, oil on canvas

Kenwood House, English Heritage, London

9. Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, 1662-64, oil on canvas

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Marquand Collection, New York

Cover image: Vermeer exhibition. Photo Rijksmuseum/ Henk Wildschut

[Written February 2023]