FOR many decades, hanging in one of our rooms has been a copy of Vermeer’s painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. I am not alone; for this is the most iconic work of one of the most popular artists of our time. There has always been a mysterious stillness about Vermeer’s paintings, an almost spiritual quality. Now, in a ground-breaking book that will radically transform the way we see these works, Andrew Graham-Dixon has revealed why they cast such a spell.
The vast majority of them are not, as might have been thought, genre paintings sold on the art market. They were commissioned by a particular couple, Pieter van Ruikven and his wife, Maria de Knuijt, for their own home, and they paid Vermeer a set sum to paint them over a period of years. Graham-Dixon shows by a careful examination of the documents of the time, wills, bills, accounts of visits, debts, and sales, that this couple belonged to a pious Christian group who held meetings for prayer, worship, and music in their house. These paintings on their walls expressed their understanding of the Christian faith in everyday terms.
Religious life in the Dutch Republic at the time was fraught and dangerous. It was dominated by the strict Calvinistic Reformed Church. At the same time, there were splinter groups wanting something more tolerant. Emerging out of an Arminian theology, they called themselves Observants and, within that wider grouping, Collegiants. Women played a key part, and, of course, most of Vermeer’s paintings focus on women.
Graham-Dixon builds up a picture of these Collegiants and their contacts with Pieter and Maria, who lived in a house beside an Observant church. Against this background, he examines each one of Vermeer’s paintings, arguing for its Christian significance. The girl with a pearl earring, for example, is Mary Magdalene, for whom the group had a particular devotion, recognising the risen Christ. Woman with a Balance depicts a woman weighing her conscience before God, while The Milkmaid, which shows a woman pouring milk from a jug, is a sign of our duty to feed the poor. These Christians were peace-loving and also looking for the promised new heaven and new earth that, they thought, would come soon. So, Vermeer’s painting View of Delft, it is argued, is not just an ordinary town scene, but a sign of that new age when all will be enveloped in peace.
Graham-Dixon is careful at every point to put in “may”, “might”, “perhaps”, and “probable”; for the direct hard evidence is scarce. But his plausible conjectures are like a good detective story, and they build up to a fascinating story. One particularly difficult feature to fit into his story is the fact that Vermeer’s wife was a Roman Catholic, and they lived in the house of his fiercely Catholic mother-in-law, on whom they were financially depended. All their 11 children were baptised as Catholic. This suggests that Vermeer’s own presence in the group of his patrons must have been very limited. But, overall, Graham-Dixon convinces, and, as a result of his detailed research, these paintings will never be viewed in the same way again.
Vermeer: A life lost and found
Andrew Graham-Dixon
Allen Lane £30
(978-1-84614-710-4 )
Church Times Bookshop £27
