Looking at Vermeer

ABSTRACT

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam held a major exhibition of the artwork of Johannes Vermeer from February 10 to June 4, 2023. Twenty-eight of his paintings were gathered in one place, the largest exhibition ever of his oeuvre. The author not only went to this exhibition but also traveled to Vermeer’s hometown of Delft where the artist spent almost his entire life. In addition to reviewing the design and layout of the exhibition as well as the art shown, he discusses the importance of Delft as a location along with significant events in Dutch history at that time. The psychological effects of looking at Vermeer are considered, with attention to Vermeer’s use of colors, perspective, themes, and light. Vermeer’s capacity for opening an observer to introversion is elaborated through a discussion of the archetypal dimensions of his art as well as his innovative understanding of how to represent pregnant moments.

KEY WORDS:

• Art
• Delft
• introverted attitude
• painting
• pregnant moment
• Rijksmuseum
• Vermeer

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Images of Vermeer’s paintings are reprinted with permission of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

NOTE

References to The Collected Works of C. G. Jung are cited in the text as CW, volume number, and paragraph number. The Collected Works are published in English by Routledge (UK) and Princeton University Press (USA).

Notes

1. These were: View of Delft (1661, all dates from a span will note the end); The Little Street (1659); Diana and her Nymphs (1656); Saint Praxedis (1655); Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (1655); The Procuress (1656); Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (1658); The Milkmaid (1659); Young Woman with a Lute (1664); Officer and Laughing Girl (1658); Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid (1672); Girl with a Red Hat (1667); Girl with a Flute (1667, the National Gallery in Washington, DC no longer considers this painting by Vermeer although others disagree); The Lacemaker (1668); Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (1672, a virginal is a kind of harpsicord; this is the first of two with the same name and in this painting she is wearing a blue dress); Young Woman Standing at a Virginal (1672); Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (1672, this is the second with the same name; she is wearing a yellow wrap); The Love Letter (1670); Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (1664); A Lady Writing (1667); Mistress and Maid (1667); The Glass of Wine (1661); Girl Interrupted at her Music (1661); The Geographer (1668); Woman with a Pearl Necklace (1664); Allegory of the Catholic Faith (1674); Woman Holding a Balance (1664). The Girl with a Pearl Earring (1667) was only in the exhibition until March 30, 2023, and returned to the Mauritshuis.

^2. Numbers are taken from the Rijksmuseum Press Kit: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/press/rijksmuseum-s-vermeer-exhibition-most-successful-in-its-history.

^3. Lakes are pigments made from dyes, transparent and soluble (see Jelley 2017, 40).

^4. Or “Again the sphinx!” Thoré-Bürger (1807–1869) was a journalist who authored an article about Vermeer in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1866. This resulted in international attention to Vermeer (see Broos in Wheelock 1996, 59).

^5. To see this painting, go to https://www.khm.at/objektdb/detail/2574/.

^6. White is made from many substances, including bone, chalk, zinc, and others; as a pigment, it does claim a place as a color (see Jelley 2017). See also Color Matters at https://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/are-black-and-white-colors#:~:text=Technically%2C%20pure%20white%20is%20the,strictest%20sense%20of%20the%20definition.

^7. Lessing lived from 1729 to 1781. Laocoön was a temple priest in Troy. In Virgil’s The Aeneid, his death is portrayed when he attempts to warn the Trojans that the gift of the wooden horse is a trick. Sea serpents emerge to strangle him and his two sons. A statue of this dramatic scene is at the Vatican Museum in Rome. I wrote my senior thesis with a Bryn Mawr College professor on Lessing’s works.

^8. To see this, go to https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437878.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Tyminski

ROBERT TYMINSKI (USA) is an adult and child analyst member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and a past president; he also teaches in the Institute’s analytic training program. A 2016 winner of the Michael Fordham Prize from the Journal of Analytical Psychology, Dr. Tyminski is the author of Male Alienation at the Crossroads of Identity, Culture and Cyberspace (Routledge, 2018), Crooked Lines (2016), and The Psychology of Theft and Loss: Stolen and Fleeced (Routledge, 2014). His newest book, The Psychological Effects of Immigrating: A Depth Psychology Perspective on Relocating to a New Place, came out in late 2022. Correspondence: [email protected].