Original subtitles

Look at the mere painting and everything seems crystal clear, simple scenes of women going

about their daily tasks and then you look again and realise that nothing is quite what

it seems. There's a mystery unfolding before your eyes. The pictures are as elusive as

their creator who was virtually unknown in his lifetime, his reputation based on less than

40 works that he created some of the most intensely mesmerizing images in Western art.

Your harness for me was born in 1632 here in Delft, thriving market town in the

United Provinces of the Netherlands. It was actually born here in this building,

which was a tavern called the Flying Fox owned by his father, a man called Rainier Yans,

who also was a master silk weaver, and the mere himself was christened in the shadow of his

birthplace in this the Protestant Noi Kirk. When the meal was nine, his family moved around the corner

here into the grand market place, the commercial centre of Delft, and in fact they opened another

tavern, just down there called the Mechalan, from where his father operated as an art dealer.

It also became a place where local painters began to congregate, and so from an early age,

Johannes Vermeer was immersed in the Delft art scene.

Vermeer embarked on a career as a painter in his teens, but winning his 20,

inherited his father's in business, along with a small art dealership.

The Mech 17th centuries become known as the golden age of Dutch art,

of which Amsterdam was the centre. The country's wealth meant that artists such as Rembrandt

and Yans stay in flourished. Delft though was a minor place in comparison, but this

prosperous provincial town did have its own distinct style. Delft painters were known for

this is a view of Delft painted midway through Vermeer's career around 1660,

considered by many as he's master piece. The town's wealth was based on trade through its

connections to other Dutch cities, firing intricate network of waterways, which is subtly evoked

here by Vermeer with his view of the river and canals. He depicts the city on a lazy Sunday afternoon,

with strollers out enjoying the tranquility. The buildings and their shadows create a continuous

band across the canvas, beating a gentle visual rhythm as the eyes taken from left to right.

The sun breaking through the clouds reveals deep patches of blue and illuminates the roofs on

the right hand side of the scene. By making the sky dominate two thirds of the picture,

Vermeer is paying homage to that which will bring all of his paintings to life.

Daylight. But all was not as tranquil as this painting might suggest.

The United Provinces or modern day Holland was a Protestant republic,

whose struggle for independence from the Catholic Spanish Empire was finally realized in 1648.

And for most of Vermeer's life, Holland was at war with its European neighbours,

England and France. Calvinism, a form of Protestantism, became the official

religion in Holland in the mid 17th century. The display of paintings or frescoes was banned

in Calvinist churches, so there was little call for religiously themed artworks.

However in the art world, biblical subjects, along with mythological ones,

were still considered the highest form of painting.

Vermeer's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary is considered his first major work,

and is the largest painting he ever made.

Initially it seems far removed from Vermeer's later works,

where he mainly concentrated on the subject of domestic scenes, however the picture does

anticipate classic Vermeer in a number of ways. Although it's a biblical story, it's set in a

book, Vermeer uses intense contrasting colours and the surface texture is incredibly smooth.

The composition too is simple but striking. The figures form a triangle,

with Christ's hand central to the image, stark against the white tablecloth.

The picture depicts a story from the new testament when Christ visits to sisters. Martha is annoyed

that she's doing all the work preparing food while a sister does nothing.

But Christ points out that Martha's good deeds are not the only way of being a Christian,

the contemplation of Mary listening at his feet is equally valid.

This contrast between the two sisters highlighted the central dispute between Catholics and

Protestants about the proper path to salvation.

Protestantism affirmed the idea of justification by faith alone,

whilst Catholicism stressed the necessity of good deeds in order to gain eternal life,

both of which are suggested in this painting.

Interestingly, this duality was also reflected in Vermeer's personal life.

On the 5th of April, 1653, Vermeer registered here at the town hall in Delph,

then he was going to get married to a girl called Catarina bonus. She was a Catholic and minority

in the northern provinces, and it seems as if Vermeer converted to Catholicism in order to appease

his mother-in-law. They got married in a small village just out of town, and then moved

back to his mother-in-law's home, and over the next two decades they had 15 children.

As his family grew, Vermeer became more dependent on his mother-in-law, as well as the

in and the art dealership for his income. He'd never have made enough money to support the family

from painting alone. Vermeer only painted two or three paintings a year,

believed to be because of his meticulous way of working.

He had a few loyal patrons who always bought his pictures,

the Delph's printer Van Raoven owned about 20 of Vermeer's paintings, over half of his known works.

In this picture, Vermeer is undergoing a major shift in subject matter,

from historical or biblical paintings to domestic images, from epic subjects to the every day.

And what we see is a view of a street in Delft, and people think that perhaps it's a view

from Vermeer's second floor apartment, looking down, but also he's presented as a composite view.

He's also invented a lot of this in his mind. What we see is a woman sitting here in wrapped

attention, doing her laced-making. In the foreground here, sitting on the street itself,

a two children, and then down this little alleyway, is the maid. She's getting water out of this

wooden bat, and in some ways she's our first major point of contact in the painting,

because of this water trough that comes out to meet us and guides us into looking at this figure.

There's some brilliant pictorial devices used by Vermeer in this image too.

Look at the white here, the white wash along the bottom. In some ways, you can say this is a

learning the tricks of the trade. He doesn't have to do all the bricks, but also he highlights

the figures themselves, and it mirrors the white in the sky of this dull day, which in turn

makes the building stand out more. But the effect certainly from afar is almost photographic.

Look at the way Vermeer has the buildings parallel to the picture plane, and yet we get a sense

of a fragment of a small world that we're looking at that's part of a much bigger world beyond.

He doesn't give us one building centre stage, he gives us two, and we only see part of them.

Also, notice how he skewed the door here. The door on the window aren't dead centre,

as they must have been in the view that Vermeer actually saw, but this fits the painting better.

And apart from having this sense of parallel or going along the street, Vermeer then takes

us in, in here to the doorway where the maid is, but also in here. Now look at all the other

in this building. They're all closed up, it's the idea of a closed world, a world that we can't quite

get into, but he gives us a glimpse through this door, and he gives us a glimpse through this window.

And for the next 16 or 17 years in his art, he takes us away from the street from the outside

into a domestic closed private world and creates some of the most memorable images of Western art.

A certain amount of tension is created by the placement of these figures here, at the

boundary between the home and the outside world. In 17th century Holland, the place for virtuous

women was firmly in the home, to stray beyond these limits, meant opening itself up to potential

vise. And in this picture Vermeer gives us a supreme image of the virtuous woman, the maid,

pouring milk from a jug into a bowl. It's a humble scene illuminated from the left as natural

light floods in through a window, you can see one of the pains though is broken. On this bleached

wall, we can see the details that show us that it's a very modest room. There's plaster

flaking off from a hole in the wall. There's a nail on the wall where a picture might hang,

but everything draws our attention to this simple but rich drama in the foreground. The milk

seems suspended in perpetual motion. Likewise, the folds of the maid's dress and her arms

focus us in on the simple act of pouring. So do our eyes. It's a moment of intense concentration

and a very private moment. It's as if we've stumbled into a scene that we perhaps shouldn't see.

There's also something else that Vermeer does though. There's more formal that makes this image

seem grander than it is. It's tiny, jewel-like and it's on my eye level and yet because of the

angle of composition because he tilts the table up slightly and shows us the image as if seen from

below it monumentalizes the woman herself. And so what Vermeer is doing in this image as he does

throughout the rest of his career is make the everyday see-mepic. There's another crucial feature in

this work that can tell us more about Vermeer's technique. The almost photographic representation

of the effects of light seen here in the highlighted spots on the bread has been related to the

artist's use of a camera obscura. This was effectively the predecessor of the camera. It's a

simple optical device incorporating a pinhole or lens and mirrors with which an image of a scene can

be projected onto a small screen. The image can then be traced or copied making it easier for

study the effects of light and shade and that's helped capture the subtle effects of daylight

in a room on different surfaces, miraculously bringing the visual world to life.

70th Century Holland was a culture which encouraged the avid pursuit of scientific knowledge

based on intense observation. Delft was a center for the manufacture of precision instruments

like microscopes and lenses. For me as admiration for the pursuit of knowledge,

is demonstrated in two memorable pictures he painted around 1668. The geographer and this one,

the astronomer. Elaborate geographical maps and globes are a common detail that featuring his work.

He reproduces them with such extreme precision, revealing a deep personal interest.

By the 1660s Vermeer had established his reputation as the most innovative painter in Delft,

his paintings were fetching up to 600 guilders, much harder than the prices commanded by his contemporaries,

and he was asked to serve as the head of Delft's artist guild.

But his fame was not widespread, perhaps because he didn't paint many pictures,

maybe because he didn't travel much beyond Delft, and despite of his intellectual curiosity,

Vermeer's concerns remained above all within a world behind closed doors.

Johannes Vermeer had developed a very particular subject matter in style,

there's something clean and beautiful about all his pictures,

there's no angst, no noise, and no melodrama.

His pictures feature the same generic characters,

clothes or props appear from one work to the next. The tapestry rug, the globes, the maps,

the women nilly always wear pearls. A flooring is usually black and white.

While the young women predominate, they play lutes or virginals, they read or write letters,

their faces lit up by the light streaming through a window on the left of the picture.

Yet there's always something ambiguous about his pictures. They capture only one brief moment of

a narrative, whenever given the whole story. In fact, Vermeer plays with us, by giving us visual clues.

There are many ambiguous features in a made of sleep. The women's gestures aren't clear.

Are they signs of melancholy, or is she just sleeping?

The half-fold glass of wine might indicate that she's drunk and has fallen asleep,

therefore is neglecting her household duties. The story gets more intriguing when we learn

that x-ray examinations of this picture show that Vermeer has painted out a man in the doorway.

Now we might read the angle chair as an indication of recently departed probably male company.

Has she been entertaining a man when she should have been working?

Ultimately, though, it's left up to us, the viewers, to work out the story for ourselves and complete the picture.

In the middle of the 1660s Vermeer changed his composition lemphasis and the results were

quietly spectacular in this painting. What we see is a young girl, against a black background,

which pushes her out towards us. In fact, her face is very close to the picture playing itself.

There's no background detail at all. I think that it does seem like a real human being.

She seems to be alive before our eyes as you look at her. At the same time, there is the idea of

perfection here, but also, as in the best of Vermeer's work, there's a wonderful sense of ambiguity.

She's a young girl who is innocent, but at the same time her open mouth with slight moisture on it,

and the sparkle in her eye make a seductive at the same time. She's knowing and innocent in one

on the same moment. She's also, beautifully illuminated from the left, and colour is wonderfully

alive and balanced in the picture too. She uses expensive pigment, ultramarine, this is the dark blue,

and then this tin-led yellow. And if you look at the lips as well, where there's red, it means

using three primary colours. The earring itself, which is almost comically oversized, is a sign

I think of opulence and all nateness. It amplifies her beauty, but also, it casts its own reflection

on the side of her chin. And in those details, particularly, where the edge of her face meets the

start black background, but also, the way that her nose is defined, we start to realise that

this is a technique pioneered by Leonardo da Vinci himself, the idea of Sformato of blurring the edges.

And in fact, when this work was revealed, a couple of centuries after theumea painted it

to a Dutch public, they immediately hailed it as the jaconda of the north or the Dutch Mona Lisa.

For me, his palette is reminiscent of the colour he saw in the ceramics for which Delft was,

and still his famous. Delft where blue and white was used for kitchenware and tiles,

which can be seen on the skirtings of the walls in many of his works.

And an indication that he was lavish when it came to painting was found in his fondness

for natural ultra-marine blue, a rare and expensive colour, which he used frequently in his work.

As well as his use of colour, it's for mere as meticulous composition,

which makes him stand out as such a major artist.

The lady writing a letter with her maid painted we think when the mere was 38,

shows his mastery of perspective, the way that the checkered floor received so convincingly,

the way the table and chair seem like real, believable objects in a real space.

But the mere's interest in perspective goes beyond creating a tangible space.

He uses it to move the eye about the canvas.

The maiden is painting his place right in the middle of the canvas,

but her face and folded arms form a strong link with the window frame,

and that leads our eye to the head of the seated woman who's writing.

He links the figures, been in a way that's unforced, almost unnoticeable.

These serene domestic images heighten the preciousness of the private worlds that he depicts in

his interiors, whilst turmoil continued outside.

Some art historians think that this painting was begun in 1673 and referred directly to the

political events that were happening in Holland, and Holland was involved in the war against

but the subject matter like the dating of the painting is open to all sorts of interpretation.

It's a fantastically ambiguous work. It's also for many people,

me included, the height of the mere's artistic achievement.

The politics stems from the fact that center stage, or at least on the wall,

at the back of the painting, is a map of the Netherlands about 100 years old,

of the United Provinces, and that combined with the double eagle head on the chandelier,

and the fact that the muse here has a laurel head in front of the haig,

which is the seat of the house of orange. All this information has been

fused into one interredation that says, this is Vermeer, allowing himself to the house of orange

in this conflict against the French. But if you take that view of the painting,

it's extraordinarily limited. It's looking down in a way rather than looking at the bigger picture.

Because what we see here is a time-on-a-subject in art history, a painter showing us,

exploring what it is that he does, and the crucial thing is that we have a view of a painter

painting in his studio, and that this image here is first and foremost to our eyes of a beautiful

young girl standing by the window. Then we look at the details. She's wearing the laurel,

she's clutching a trumpet and a book, and in fact she's supposed to be clear the muse of history.

And in fact what Vermeer is doing here is presenting us with an image of history painting,

which in the hierarchy of painting is the highest form of art.

So he's showing us what he can do in this field, and after his early career,

this is the only example of Vermeer doing history painting in that short 1718 years

that he's active as an artist. We also see how brilliantly stage the painting is.

It's almost as if an invisible hand is pulling back the curtain to reveal what it is the artist does.

There's something theatrical or dramatic about what we see. You look at the floor,

the way that he's black and white tiles are. You look at the lavishness of the of the curtain itself.

You look at the individual objects on the table. You look at the map in the background,

the ceiling, itself, wooden beams, and the chandelier itself, too. And all of this gives you

this fantastic visual melting pot. But ultimately we notice the painter who many think is Vermeer

himself in the middle of sketching the outline of the figure and just starting to have painted

her laurel crown. And it's almost as if Vermeer is giving himself or the art of painting a laurel.

Finally, the picture itself is one that we complete in our own minds. Vermeer's only begun it,

or at least the artist is only begun it. And we can see what he's trying to do. But what we can

also see, because Vermeer gives it to us, is a much bigger and broader picture. And for all those

reasons, it's as if Vermeer feeds everything he's learnt into this final masterpiece.

But these ideal worlds of peace and beauty that Vermeer created for himself and others were

shattered by the cruel reality of war. The wealth of the commercially successfully united

provinces generated a continued rivalry with neighbouring countries, which led to repeated fighting.

And it marked a turning point for Vermeer himself. The end almost nothing during his last years

because of ruinous economic conditions brought on by the wars. Vermeer no longer received

rent from the end, no one could afford it, and he didn't sell one worker his own or from his art dealership.

The following years were an uphill struggle, and eventually the financial strain was too great.

His wife, Katarina, recalled, because of the war with France and because of the large sums of

money we had to spend on the children, sums he was no longer able to pay, he fell into

such a depression and lethargy that he lost his health and in the space of one and a half days,

he died. Vermeer was just 43. Ultimately, the real world had impenetised on Vermeer's

tranquil-painted universe. After his death in 1675, Katarina was left to pick up the pieces.

She was declared bankrupt and had to sell the only two paintings that remained in her possession,

one of them was the art of painting. For Vermeer's own fame and place in history,

dwindled to the point of obscurity over the next two centuries, but the idea so strongly implied

in his grand allegory that his paintings would live on imposterity. A since blossom to the point

that he is now one of the most cherished of all the great artists by the gallery-going public,

even if, with his back turned away from us, he remains essentially a thing of mystery.