Jan Vermeer (31 October, 1632- 16 December, 1675)

Johannes Vermeer also known as Jan Vermeer was a Dutch artist whose remarkably small oeuvre is counted as amongst the best and most revered in the art world today.

The 36 paintings that have survived are great treasures on display in some of the best museums in the world. Though Vermeer began his artistic career in the 1650s by painting large-panel mythological/religious scenes, he is most famous for the ones, which depicted the daily bourgeois life and domestic interior scenes in the Dutch town of Delft. Vermeer paintings are highly remarkable for the quality of work. The forms and purity of light convey a sense of calmness and serenity that instills a timeless quality to the paintings.

Jan Vermeer belonged to a prosperous family and his father owned an inn and an art agency. After his father demise, young Vermeer inherited the businesses and in 1653, he married Catherina Bolnes with whom he had eleven children.

Very little is known about Vermeer's decisions to become a painter. It is also not known if he traveled to Italy, France and other places like most artists did. Some of Jan Vermeer's early mythological paintings like 'Diana and Her Companions' (1665-56) and 'Christ in the House of Mary and Martha' (1655) reflect influences from Rembrandt's painting style. Carel Fabritius (1622-1654) who spent the last years of his life in Delft also influenced Jan Vermeer.

In addition, it is assumed that Fabritius and Gerard Terborchan artist from Deventer influenced Vermeer's ideas about perspective, and his tendency to depict scenes from ordinary day-to-day life. Leonaert Bramer, who was a fellow painter from Delft, and witness to Vermeer's marriage, also affected the outcome of Vermeer paintings.

Although most of Vermeer paintings. are of indoor scenes, he did panting two outdoor scenes, "The View of Delft" and "Street in Delft," (1660-1661) that are simply the best landscape paintings of the 17th Century. Vermeer paintings. have a realistic look with muted colors having sudden flashes of bright reds and yellows, reflecting the technical brilliance in the use of light, and shadows making them very popular with the viewers.

Many art critics believe that Vermeer painted pictures with the help of 'camera obscura' an optical device that was capable of projecting a view on a flat plane, lighting up the background while allowing the foreground to remain in shadows.

Vermeer paintings such as ‘The Girl with the Pearl Earring’ (1665) also known as ‘Mona Lisa of the North’, ‘The Woman with the Lute’ (1663), ‘The Procuress’ (1656) and others have a quality of tranquilness to them. With the use of subtle lighting, mostly from the side of the room, shadows are balanced with light while colors and tones are dense but simple.

Vermeer paintings are dominated by subtle grays, blues, and yellows make the paintings appear richer and attractive to the naked eye.

Vermeer used a technique called 'pointillist' method of painting, which uses individual points of color and upon viewing; these individual points make a picture. Paintings that use this technique appear softer and the lines appear more blurred giving the paintings a muted, soft appearance.

Though Jan Vermeer died at the young age of 43, in 1675, he left behind a legacy of some of the best paintings ever, and has become one of the most celebrated Dutch painters known for the calm and serene pictorial quality of daily life in 17th century Delft.