Artwork Analysis: View of Delft - Esther

Thanks to films & books Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is virtually mainstream. Or at least one of his paintings is. So much so that in fact, naming a second Vermeer might be tricky for those with little interest in art. Indeed there are only 34 paintings left to us that are attributable to Vermeer & of those, only three are dated. More than most artists, Johannes is about quality, not quantity.

Despite his Well-Known Painting being undoubtedly beautiful, accomplished & even ground-breaking, it is not, in my opinion his greatest. Viewing it at the Hague’s Mauritshuis, it is almost exactly as you’d expect it to be. The right size, the right colours & surrounded by eager viewers. Much like the Mona Lisa (c. 1503-6), The Girl With the Pearl Earring (1665) has grown famous in part because of her associated mystery. When a narrative is not easily forthcoming, it provokes the imagination & whilst giving the viewer something to think about, many onlookers (directors & writers included), will opt for the same story. Lust might seem like a lowest common denominator & not particularly imaginative, however it is nevertheless a motivation for artists throughout history. But you can see an image too much.

& as an aside, there are misgivings about whether that is even a pearl.     

So no, we’re not looking at that one today. You may think View of Delft just looks like a nice Dutch Golden Age townscape & you’d be right. & if you’ve not stood in front of it, that’s understandable. But it’s so much more. It’s a masterpiece. Here are some reasons why.

Details

Painted in 1660-1 (apparently we know this because of the date the bell was installed in the belltower, trivia fans!) View of Delft shows the city facing north west & although it is hard to tell online, there has just been a heavy shower of rain. I’m afraid to say there is no online reproduction that can possibly do the painting justice. Despite Vermeer’s limited palette, the details are astonishing. Each leaf, every terracotta roof tile has its own individual splash of water settled into it until those clouds part & the sun can dry them off. It’s thought Vermeer was able to employ this level of detail with a device such as a camera obscura. People can be quite sniffy about the use of optical tools in art, but really a camera obscura is effectively just a form of telescope in this instance. If you’ve been fortunate enough to use one, you can understand how objects & their details even from a great distance would come closer to the artist. It’s about seeing more clearly, not about taking away the effort he has to make as a painter & if anything, the device gives him too much scope. Here’s where his compositional skills must come into play...

Composition

At a glance, View of Delft is a Rule of Three classic! Yet isn’t it just a bit top heavy? Doesn’t there seem to be a little too much sky to be conventional? Isn’t it slightly more as if it’s been quartered from top to bottom? As the showers move away from the city to soak other unfortunates elsewhere, a lesser artist might’ve been tempted to chop off that large band of black cloud at the top. But in Johannes we must trust – he knows what he’s doing - & that disappearing darkness lends the painting a narrative we’d otherwise not have expected. The scale of the scene is only really attained when we notice the figures in the foreground. Eventually our eyes move towards them, reminding us (should we need reminding at this time) that no matter how grand our cities, they are nothing if they are not peopled.

Effect of Size

Many of Vermeer’s paintings are a similar, comfortable, hang-on-your-wall size but this is a larger piece. That said, at 96.5 x 115.7 cm you are, even when confronted by it in the Mauritshuis, almost tricked into thinking it’s bigger. It might have something to do with the fact that you’re viewing a city, but I think it’s that vast sky. We’ve surely all experienced it – perhaps after a torrential downpour, when the sky seems larger & more luminous & the air is clean & fresh & we take a deep breath in. That is what View of Delft evokes. Sure, it’s a Delft scene, but it’s also about the state of being alive.

The Water

Picture a stretch of fresh water with the rain falling on it. We know what that looks like: the ripples, the splashes, the reflection of light. If you were an artist, you might be tempted to suggest a lot of movement on the surface. 

But if you were then to imagine it with a shower moving across it, the surface would be different. We know how that looks too: it’s more like a spray, it doesn’t affect the entire surface. Vermeer doesn’t overdo it. He generates just enough believable movement on the water, the mist shimmering across the surface. & where the water hasn’t hit yet, there is the inevitable slight rippling effect but an otherwise untouched reflection of the city.

We now have another possible narrative. Perhaps a city & the sometimes unsettled image of itself in the waterways that made the country what it still is today.

The Place

Delft is one of those places I’ve not been yet been & really should visit, if only to search for this view. Under normal circumstances, I’d certainly have been taking a trip to the Netherlands at least once over the past year.In any case there is recent photographic evidence by others to show the general area Vermeer has painted here. You can still see the spires. 

It’s always a thrill to pinpoint a place that may have changed a great deal over several centuries, but has landmarks that identify the spot almost exactly. It brings us closer not only to the artwork but also to the artist himself. 

It says, “Vermeer was here. Greatness was here.” In the absence of much factual information about Johannes, it’s lovely to have what little there is of his art to experience his humanity.