Vermeer and the Dutch Masters – A Bunch of Plagiarists

[By Róisín Curé in Dublin] All summer I wanted to get to the Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery in Dublin. I had seen the movie back in June, had made my mother go to it too, and was enchanted by Vermeer. As an urban sketcher who loves to catch people in everyday poses, I knew this man spoke my language. He was moved by the power and simplicity of the lives of the women around him to capture them for posterity.

Finally I had the chance in early September, and went to book tickets (I had persuaded my entire family to come too, other than the teenager who is ploughing her own furrow at the moment). Surprise! Sold out. And for the following weekend. Disaster. There was only one slot left on a day that I could make it and it was the last day of the exhibition. I booked it, worrying that they’d decide the day before that enough people had seen it, they’d hit their target and the pictures could go back to Amsterdam or Rotterdam or wherever.

The movie, Vermeer, Beyond Time, introduced us to lots of the Dutch Masters as well as Johannes. Yes, I may have shut my eyes briefly during the movie, but that was the bit where Vermeer is standing at the edge of a canal in the dark, with dry ice (mist) wafting around his feet. It’s very soporific. My mother decided she’d love to come to the exhibition too, despite having slept soundly through the movie alongside my dad Paddy and their mate Gerry. I asked my mother if she felt she deserved to go to the exhibition, but she very much did.

The exhibition came with little black phones which everyone else seemed to work out how to use a lot faster than me (including my children). My mother, father and their pal Gerry knew immediately what to do with them, because they spend a lot of time at exhibitions: Mum and Gerry because they both paint and Dad because he enjoys going along for the ride and likes art anyway. Plus he is usually guaranteed to say something completely left-of-field about whatever we’re looking at. I always try to sidle up to him at any event to see if he is going to say something bananas.

The exhibition, which was packed, was about how the Dutch Masters all copied each other and were quick off the block to see what each other was up to, then dash to their own studios. There was a lot of competition and everyone had to have an edge of some sort. It was a hugely fruitful time in art, there was a lot of money about and a lot of rich people who needed everyone to know how refined and arty they were (plus ça change). The paintings were arranged into groups with similar themes. So you’d have five paintings of women reading a letter. Then four of women sweeping the floor. Then five of young ladies at their toilet being startled by prospective lovers. No, not that kind of toilet, but nonetheless the gents had no business startling them. The narrator on the little black phones was a woman but the writer was clearly a man. The ladies in the paintings never “looked” at someone, they always “gazed erotically” or wore “come hither” expressions. True story. To me, they were just looking, but that might say something about my own powers of seduction. (Note to self: buy book of pictures of ladies in Dutch Masters paintings.) In the above sketch, the theme was “Doorkijkje” – views through doorways. They were beautiful – possibly my favourite of the exhibition.

But what of the Master himself? What about Vermeer? To my amazement, he was just as quick to copy his contemporaries as anyone else. There he would be, in the middle of a row of “women doing housework” paintings. Or – and you’ve seen them all – a row of women playing musical instruments. I have to be honest though and say that there was simply no comparison between the Vermeers and the others. They were all magnificent, no doubt about that. But Vermeer was unbelievable. The skin tones were so soft and delicate and the brushwork so invisible, but this contrasted sharply with the roughly-applied cream and white of the blouses and the yellow bodices. And of course his palette…totally chimes with my view on palettes at the moment, which is to keep your colours to a minimum. Where Vermeer’s contemporaries had a lot of red and a lot of everything else, Vermeer’s were pared back. One painting would just be white and cream, yellow and navy. Another would just have blue, white and cream, navy and maybe a few browns. All with the addition of subtle skin tones, of course.

The funny thing was, though, that it seems Vermeer didn’t really go around his house becoming suddenly inspired to paint his womenfolk. He decided in advance what he wanted to paint, after having seen his contemporaries’ work – not so impromptu after all. Still, so what? I came away inspired to paint in oil, but I still believe that the power of an urban sketch to capture the here and now is the beginning point of all genre art. Is that the word for paintings of people doing stuff? It was used a lot in art college. and I always meant to ask.

Fabulous exhibition. My kids and husband loved it. Mum was delighted to go, delighted to have been able to invite Gerry and Dad said some nutty things about the paintings. Great day had by all.