Johannes Vermeer (16321675) has been one of the most widely admired European painters since his so-called rediscovery in the second half of the nineteenth century. Until quite recently, the Romantic roots of writing on the Sphinx of Delft have encouraged the image of him as an isolated genius; the artists private life and religion, his supposed use of a camera obscura, and the fact that his teacher has not been identified have all contributed to an air of mystery. As this new monograph demonstrates, Vermeers life is actually well documented and his work may be more appropriately understood by placing the painter in the context of the Delft school as a whole and of Delft society. The fact that one local patron acquired about twenty pictures by the artist (only thirty-six are known today) must have been significant for Vermeers subtleties of meaning and refinements of technique and style. In the end, however, the most historical approach to Vermeer still leaves us with a master whose rare sensibility and extraordinary powers of observation may be described but not explained.

"This volume--the new standard Vermeer monograph--reproduces all 34 paintings, augmenting each with close-ups that lay bare the loving care Vermeer lavished upon each painstaking work." from publisher's website

This book is not only a fascinating biography of one of the greatest painters of the seventeenth century but also a social history of the colorful extended family to which he belonged and of the town life of the period. It explores a series of distinct worlds: Delft's Small-Cattle Market, where Vermeer's paternal family settled early in the century; the milieu of shady businessmen in Amsterdam that recruited Vermeer's grandfather to counterfeit coins; the artists, military contractors, and Protestant burghers who frequented the inn of Vermeer's father in Delft's Great Market Square; and the quiet, distinguished "Papists Corner" in which Vermeer, after marrying into a high-born Catholic family, retired to practice his art, while retaining ties with wealthy Protestant patrons. The relationship of Vermeer to his principal patron is one of many original discoveries in the book.

Vermeer's record of the tasks and duties of women The 35 paintings that have come down to us from the hand of Jan Vermeer (1632-1675) place him beside Rembrandt and Frans Hals as one of the great masters of the golden age of Dutch art. Most of his pictures (all of which are reproduced in this book) show women about their daily business. Vermeer records the tasks and duties of women, the imperatives of virtue under which their lives were lived, and the dreams that provided the substance of their contrasting counter-world. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Vermeer and the Art of Love is about the emotions evoked in those elegant interiors in which a young woman may be writing a letter to her absent beloved or playing a virginal in the presence of an admirer. But it is also about the love we sense in the painter's attentiveness to every detail within those rooms, which lends even the most mundane of objects the quality of something extraordinary. In this engaging and beautifully illustrated book, Georgievska-Shine uncovers the ways in which Vermeer challenges the dichotomies between 'good' and 'bad' love, the sensual and the spiritual, placing him within the context of his contemporaries to give the reader a fascinating insight into his unique understanding and interpretation of the subject.

A landmark exploration of the engaging network of relationships among genre painters of the Dutch Golden Age The genre painting of the Dutch Golden Age between 1650 and 1675 ranks among the highest pinnacles of Western European art. The virtuosity of these works, as this book demonstrates, was achieved in part thanks to a vibrant artistic rivalry among numerous first-rate genre painters working in different cities across the Dutch Republic. They drew inspiration from each other's painting, and then tried to surpass each other in technical prowess and aesthetic appeal. The Delft master Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is now the most renowned of these painters of everyday life. Though he is frequently portrayed as an enigmatic figure who worked largely in isolation, the essays here reveal that Vermeer's subjects, compositions, and figure types in fact owe much to works by artists from other Dutch cities. Enlivened with 180 superb illustrations, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting highlights the relationships - comparative and competitive - among Vermeer and his contemporaries, including Gerrit Dou, Gerard ter Borch, Jan Steen, Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu, and Frans van Mieris. Published in association with the National Gallery of Ireland Exhibition Schedule: Musee du Louvre 02/20/17--05/22/17 National Gallery of Ireland 06/17/17--09/17/17 National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (10/22/17--01/21/18)