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Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found
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About This Book
This revelatory biography persuasively addresses the two great unresolved questions about Vermeer—why did he paint his pictures, and what do they mean? One spring day in 1683, a notary's clerk in Delft entered the home of the late Magdalena Pieters van Ruijven and stumbled on one of the wonders of the seventeenth–century twenty paintings by Johannes Vermeer. How had this one Dutchwoman come to possess the majority of the master's work? And why have these images—among the most beautiful, even sublime, in the history of art—defied explanation for so long? Following new leads and drawing on freshly uncovered evidence from Dutch archives, acclaimed art historian Andrew Graham–Dixon presents a dramatic and transformative new interpretation of the artist's life and work. Rich with piercingly direct descriptions of Vermeer's paintings, Graham–Dixon's biography is full of revelations. It upends the master's enigmatic reputation and depicts him instead as a pioneer of the early Enlightenment, a pacifist who was deeply affected by the wars and religious conflicts of the Dutch Republic and allied to a radical movement driven underground by persecution.
Reviews
"Andrew Graham-Dixon may be on a mission, but so, he believes, was Vermeer."
"Along the way, Graham-Dixon makes informed, well-researched guesses about whom Vermeer might have apprenticed with, among other mysteries."
"Through detective-like research and analysis, Graham-Dixon removes the varnish of historical interpretations to reveal the light of love and faith that this devout sect lived by and how these beliefs inspired Vermeer's paintings ..."
"New perspectives on an iconic painter ..."
"This is a fascinating portrait of Vermeer, his times and his mind."
"With a life meagrely documented even by 17th-century standards, largely because his art was admired only in small and private circles, the biographer has no choice but to speculate, infer, and suggest."
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