A Gallery of 17th-and 18th-century Paintings, Drawings and Engravings of Delft

"Vermeer's life and art are closely associated with the city of Delft. He was born in Delft in 1632 and lived there until his death in 1675. Delft, despite being a commercial center in the mid-seventeenth century, was a provincial place. Its growth was restrained and orderly; its canals and houses small and unpretentious. Today, one still finds this tranquility in its tree-lined streets. Only its two great churches, the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk, interrupt the low profile of the city's skyline.

Some of the difficulties of appraising Vermeer's achievement are inherent in any attempt to interpret the works of a previous era. Paintings are primarily a means of communication. Through them, artists strive to relate stories, ideas, moods, and credos. Delft in the early 1650s became an active and exciting place for a young artist like Vermeer. The stylistic conventions that had recently dominated the city were replaced by fresh approaches to the depiction of landscape, cityscape, architectural painting, portraiture, and genre painting. Whereas Delft artists in the first half of the century had effectively removed their subjects from the context of daily life, those working after 1650 actively sought to depict man within, and reacting to, a specific environment. In these paintings, identifiable buildings, streets, churches, and tombs serve as backdrops, or even points of focus for their paintings. Locations are recognizable because objects are painted with the utmost care and precision. At the same time, these artists became increasingly aware of the effects of natural light in both interior and exterior scenes."^{Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Vermeer (New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc, 1981), 9.}

The School of Delft, as the burst of artistic activity is commonly referred to today, was loosely composed of a heterogeneous group of artists, most of whom were born outside Delft but worked there at one time or another for varying lengths of time between 1650 and 1670. These artists came to Delft from many locations and for many reasons. According to some art historians, there was, however, no pivotal figure in Delft (least of all Vermeer) around whom the other painters gathered for inspiration, although at one time or another Carel Fabritius, Pieter Saenredam, Paulus Potter, and even Nicolaes Maes have been cast in the role of catalysts.

We know that Italian artists and art writers of the Renaissance thought the artistic production from each of the major Italian cities (Rome, Florence and Venice) presented distinct characteristics distinguishing them from the others. There is no documentary evidence showing that painters of Amsterdam, Haarlem or Utrecht had ever viewed the more innovative art production of Delft distinct from the production of other cities—enough so to merit an appellative. Nor is it known if the painters of the School of Delft themselves held that there was a common thread binding them together.

Vermeer may have urged the awkward Pieter de Hooch to draw his figures and organize his compositions with greater care. However, whether Vermeer's whitewashed walls owe more to the pearl-gray church walls of Gerard Houckgeest or Emmanuel de Witte, rather than to the stark white background of Fabritius's tiny Goldfinch, remains impossible to ascertain. A significant number of the paintings produced in Delft are not dated, frustrating attempts to determine the directions of influence with any degree of accuracy.

On the other hand, it is almost impossible to believe that in a city as small as Delft, which at that time could have been crossed on foot in a few minutes, such exceptionally talented painters belonging to the same guild would not have talked shop and kept a close eye on their colleagues' progress, if nothing else in order not to out shown in the art market's competitive arena.

However, the flowering of the School of Delft wilted as quickly as it had bloomed. By 1675, most painters who had contributed to the city's artistic rise had left Delft, likely attracted by better financial prospects elsewhere, as Delft's economy lapsed into inexorable decline. Only Vermeer remained.