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Vermeer and the Delft School
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Description
Vermeer converted to Catholicism shortly before his marriage in April 1653. This powerful work was probably intended for a private patron in the artist's newly adopted religious community in Delft. The subject was generally popular in the northern Netherlands, presumably in part because it concerns the perennial Dutch themes of household duty and feminine virtue. Van Couwenbergh painted a large and sober interpretation of the subject (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes) in Delft in 1629.
In his early works Vermeer reviewed a variety of stylistic alternatives, especially those found in the two schools that traditionally had exerted the greatest influence in Delft: Antwerp and Utrecht. In the present picture the fluid brushwork and flowing emotions of Flemish religious paintings are combined with the strong modeling, stark illumination, and (in the silhouetted figure of Mary) a facial type familiar from the works of Caravaggesque painters in Utrecht, especially Hendrick ter Brugghen. Van Dyck and other Antwerp artists as well as Utrecht painters were strongly favored at the stadtholder's court. Vermeer's response to their examples was highly selective; throughout his career he modified borrowed ideas in the light of his own observations and temperament.
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Description