Amazon.co.uk Review
In recent years, Johannes Vermeer has become established as one of the greatest of all the Old Masters. In
Vermeer and the Delft School the renowned curator Walter Liedtke confirms Vermeer's stature, and in the process elegantly recreates the world of Vermeer's adopted home town of Delft. Written to accompany a major exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery in London,
Vermeer and the Delft School brings together eight experts on 17th-century Dutch art to produce a magnificent book that modifies "the popular image of Delft, which seems to be that of a most sweet town with maids pouring milk, sweeping courtyards, and conversing with cavaliers".
Offering a panoramic survey of the history of the town and its art from 1200 to 1700, Leidtke and his contributors suggest, "Delft was a rather small world in the sense that everyone interested in the arts knew everyone else, but at the same time the small world had wide horizons". The idea of a Delft School is meant to be provocative, but the contributors make a convincing case for the town's tradition "of exceptional craftsmanship, of refined and often conservative styles and of sophisticated subject matter and expression---all of which reveal a tendency toward understatement, a certain reserve" among the tapestries, bronze statuary, silver gilt, Delftware, glass and paintings analysed throughout the book. There are fascinating articles on architecture, genre, printmaking, patronage, and collecting that include detailed reassessments of artists like De Hooch, Bramer, Fabritius, Houckgeest and Steen. Sixteen of Vermeer's paintings are beautifully reproduced, and although his work rightly takes centre stage, the 225 colour illustrations reproduced throughout Vermeer and the Delft School show that there was much more to Delft than Vermeer. --Jerry Brotton
Synopsis
Seventeenth-century Delft has traditionally been viewed as a quaint town whose artists painted scenes of domestic life. This important book revises that image, showing that the small but vibrant Dutch city produced fine examples of all the major arts, including luxury goods and sophisticated paintings for the court at The Hague and for patrician collectors in Delft itself. The book traces the history and culture of Delft from the 1200s through the lifetime of the city's most renowned painter, Johannes Vermeer. The authors discuss at length some ninety major paintings (seventeen by Vermeer), forty drawings, and a choice selection of decorative arts, all of which are reproduced in full colour. Among the paintings are state portraits, history pictures, still lifes, views of palaces and church interiors, illusionistic murals, and refined genre pictures by Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch. The rich works on paper encompass exquisite drawings by Delft artists and sketches of the town by visiting artists. Included in the decorative arts are tapestries, bronze statuary, silver, Delftware, and glass.
The volume concludes with an essay that takes the reader on a walk through seventeenth-century Delft. It is accompanied by maps of the city's neighbourhoods that indicate major monuments and the homes of patrons, art dealers, and painters. This handsome book serves as the catalogue for an exhibition to be held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 5 March to 27 May 2001 and at the National Gallery, London, from 20 June to 26 September 2001.
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