Rembrandt vs Vermeer: The Titans of Dutch Painting
Filmed at the Royal Geographical Society on 15th October 2014.
Rembrandt van Rijn is the best known of all the Dutch masters. His range was vast, from landscapes to portraits to Biblical scenes; he revolutionised every medium he handled, from oil paintings to etchings and drawings. His vision encompassed every element of life – the sleeping lion; the pissing baby; the lacerated soles of the returned prodigal son.
Making the case for him in this debate will be Simon Schama. For him Rembrandt is humanity unedited: rough, raw, violent, manic, vain, greedy and manipulative. Formal beauty was the least of his concerns, argues Schama, yet he attains beauty through his understanding of the human condition, including to be sure, his own.
But for novelist Tracy Chevalier it can all get a little exhausting. Rembrandt’s paintings, she believes – even those that are not his celebrated self-portraits – are all about himself. Championing Vermeer, she will claim that his charm lies in the very fact that he absents himself from his paintings. As a result they are less didactic and more magical than Rembrandt’s, giving the viewer room to breathe.
Chevalier has been obsessed with Vermeer since the age of 19, when she first saw his Girl with a Pearl Earring. The girl’s startled eyes and luscious, inviting mouth produce a tantalising sense of mystery and contradiction.
An other-worldly mystery also veils Vermeer’s Delft street scenes and interiors. Apparently so everyday, they are lifted to a higher sphere by the indirect gaze and the turned back, all bathed in that fuzzy, filmic Vermeer veneer. And so often they, too, ask a question. Who wrote the letter that the woman in blue reads so attentively? Who does the girl in the gold jacket strum her guitar for? The questions are never answered but we are lured back again and again in search of an answer.
Image credits:
"Allegory of the Catholic Faith" (c. 1670-1672), by Johannes Vermeer. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931 (www.metmuseum.org)
"Christ on the Cross" (1631), by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. Parish Church, Le Mas d'Angenais, France
"A Woman bathing in a Stream (Hendrickje Stoffels?)" (1654), by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. © The National Gallery, London
"Portrait of Margaretha de Geer", Wife of Jacob Trip (c. 1661), by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. © The National Gallery, London
"View of Delft" (c. 1660-1661), by Johannes Vermeer. Mauritshuis, The Hague
"A View of Delft after the Explosion of 1654" (1654), by Egbert van der Poel. © The National Gallery, London
"The Night Watch" (1642), by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
"Self-Portrait with Two Circles" (c. 1659-60), by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. © English Heritage
"The Procuress" (1656), by Johannes Vermeer. © Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie, Alte Meister
"The Jewish Bride" (1665-1669), by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
"Woman Sitting Half-Dressed beside a Stove" (1658), by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Rogers Fund, 1918 (www.metmuseum.org)
"The Guitar Player" (c. 1670-72) by Johannes Vermeer. © English Heritage
"The Art of Painting" (c. 1665-68), by Johannes Vermeer. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien
"The Milkmaid" (c. 1657-58), by Johannes Vermeer. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
"Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window" (c. 1657–59) by Johannes Vermeer. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
"Girl with a Pearl Earring" (1665), by Johannes Vermeer. Mauritshuis, The Hague
"Olga with Pearl Earring" (2010), by Flickr user "David Blackwell.". (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobilest...)
"The girl with the pearl earring" (2008) by Flickr user "Plutone (NL)". (http://www.flickr.com/photos/plutone)
"Girl with a Pearl Earring" (2012), by Flickr user "Susan LeBlanc". (http://www.flickr.com/photos/basselop...)
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