Vermeer De Delft (1632-1675)

Vermeer De Delft was a Flemish artist who painted women who read letters, make music, weigh gold, who conversed gallantly with gentlemen; Women who wrote, played the lute, take care of children, spun, and made lace bobbin.

They were common themes of Dutch painting of the seventeenth century and were protagonists of most of the works of Johannes Vermeer of Delft. A slow and meticulous work artist who spent his whole life in his hometown of Delft in the Netherlands.

His paintings (of which a little more than thirty are preserved) are usually of small size, presenting us with a palette of scarce colours, but very bright and clear, with which he manages to reflect like no one the light on the objects.

Moreover, the theme is also enormously interesting: it attracted him to represent mainly interiors, in which frequently appear female characters. Many times these women in Vermeer’s paintings are alone or, rather, accompanied by the light that enters through a window (always to the left) and places them in the picture, capturing them in relation to the task in which they are occupied.

The pictorial tradition of Flanders is well-known. It focuses on bourgeois taste for everyday and details, and the exaltation of their way of life. In these moments of religious convulsions in Europe, Flanders is an advocate of Catholicism, while Holland is one of Protestantism. However, his painting is decorative, opulent and hedonistic.

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