Vermeer and the Delft Style
Something "New" From the 17th Century
Because of the tight loop of Japan's media and information sources, audiences here sometimes have a tendency to pick up and magnify certain international trends. This creates booms in film, fashion, and even fine art, as seen with the popularity here of the 17th-century Dutch painter Jan Vermeer.
His subtle paintings of quiet domestic scenes are now attracting hordes of art fans to "Vermeer and the Delft Style," at Tokyo's Metropolitan Art Museum, which presents seven of his canvases – a record for Japan – along with a number of other paintings from associated artists, including Pieter de Hooch and Rembrandt's talented student Carel Fabritius.
The great popularity of Vermeer is remarkable because, until a few years ago, hardly anyone in Japan knew his name. Now everybody does.
"Some years ago the big name in Dutch painting for Japanese people was Rembrandt, but now it is Vermeer," Satoshi Otoba, curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum says.
But what can explain this upsurge in popularity? Obviously, being coupled with Scarlett Johansson through the speculative biopic Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), didn't hurt, but, by then, Vermeer's popularity was already in the ascendant. The true reason has more to do with market dynamics and demography.
Just like cinema audiences and music fans, Tokyo's art public has a constant need for something new. The desultory nature of contemporary art often fails to satisfy this craving, especially as, according to Otoba, Tokyo's art public is dominated by older and retired people. With the free time and money to visit exhibitions, this group dominates art audiences, and, on the whole, tends to have classical and conservative tastes. For this group, novelty consists of finding overlooked artists from the past, rather than dissected cows in tanks of formaldehyde or video installations by people "explicitly addressing gender issues."
"Vermeer's image for Japanese people is aesthetically comfortable but mysterious," Otoba explains. "This is the key to his boom."
This mystery stems partly from the shadow of neglect, which hung over genre paintings for centuries. Many of the pictures at this show, like Vermeer's The Little Street (1660) [see above image] or Pieter de Hooch's Woman with Children in an Interior (1658), resemble candid snaps of everyday 17th-century life, except for the fact that they are meticulously rendered in oils. The skill of these painters has never been in dispute. Vermeer's ability to create intimate space through subtle composition and delicately managed light and shade are impressive. But the main criticism was that such skill was employed to "say" very little.
"Most pictures of the Dutch school," the Victorian critic John Ruskin wrote, "are ostentatious exhibitions of the artist's power of speech, the clear and vigorous elocution of useless and senseless words."
Otoba dates the unpopularity of genre paintings from the rise of French power in the 17th century. Along with the hard power of Louis VXI's armies, the French also started to exercise 'soft power.'
"The French controlled politics, economy, and art," he explains. "The French Academy decided a hierarchy that placed religious and mythic paintings high above genre paintings."
In these more secular and dumbed-down times, a lack of mythical, allegorical, or religious narratives has become a strength – especially here in Japan. Modern audiences look at Vermeer with a degree of material fetishism, enjoying the skillfully created sense of reality, without feeling troubled by a need to fit it into a broader framework of meaning.
The paintings also appeal to a modern psychological sense. In Woman with a Lute (1665), the privacy of the interior and the woman's unguarded demeanor creates a sense of intimacy and a feeling sympathy, even though we see her from the position of a voyeur, unseen in the shadows of the room, and know next to nothing about her.
Masterly technique, a lack of cultural baggage, and a sense of mystery makes Vermeer the perfect painter for Tokyo's dominant art demographic.
C.B.Liddell
The Japan Times
10th October, 2008
His subtle paintings of quiet domestic scenes are now attracting hordes of art fans to "Vermeer and the Delft Style," at Tokyo's Metropolitan Art Museum, which presents seven of his canvases – a record for Japan – along with a number of other paintings from associated artists, including Pieter de Hooch and Rembrandt's talented student Carel Fabritius.
The great popularity of Vermeer is remarkable because, until a few years ago, hardly anyone in Japan knew his name. Now everybody does.
"Some years ago the big name in Dutch painting for Japanese people was Rembrandt, but now it is Vermeer," Satoshi Otoba, curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum says.
But what can explain this upsurge in popularity? Obviously, being coupled with Scarlett Johansson through the speculative biopic Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), didn't hurt, but, by then, Vermeer's popularity was already in the ascendant. The true reason has more to do with market dynamics and demography.
Just like cinema audiences and music fans, Tokyo's art public has a constant need for something new. The desultory nature of contemporary art often fails to satisfy this craving, especially as, according to Otoba, Tokyo's art public is dominated by older and retired people. With the free time and money to visit exhibitions, this group dominates art audiences, and, on the whole, tends to have classical and conservative tastes. For this group, novelty consists of finding overlooked artists from the past, rather than dissected cows in tanks of formaldehyde or video installations by people "explicitly addressing gender issues."
"Vermeer's image for Japanese people is aesthetically comfortable but mysterious," Otoba explains. "This is the key to his boom."
This mystery stems partly from the shadow of neglect, which hung over genre paintings for centuries. Many of the pictures at this show, like Vermeer's The Little Street (1660) [see above image] or Pieter de Hooch's Woman with Children in an Interior (1658), resemble candid snaps of everyday 17th-century life, except for the fact that they are meticulously rendered in oils. The skill of these painters has never been in dispute. Vermeer's ability to create intimate space through subtle composition and delicately managed light and shade are impressive. But the main criticism was that such skill was employed to "say" very little.
"Most pictures of the Dutch school," the Victorian critic John Ruskin wrote, "are ostentatious exhibitions of the artist's power of speech, the clear and vigorous elocution of useless and senseless words."
Otoba dates the unpopularity of genre paintings from the rise of French power in the 17th century. Along with the hard power of Louis VXI's armies, the French also started to exercise 'soft power.'
"The French controlled politics, economy, and art," he explains. "The French Academy decided a hierarchy that placed religious and mythic paintings high above genre paintings."
In these more secular and dumbed-down times, a lack of mythical, allegorical, or religious narratives has become a strength – especially here in Japan. Modern audiences look at Vermeer with a degree of material fetishism, enjoying the skillfully created sense of reality, without feeling troubled by a need to fit it into a broader framework of meaning.
The paintings also appeal to a modern psychological sense. In Woman with a Lute (1665), the privacy of the interior and the woman's unguarded demeanor creates a sense of intimacy and a feeling sympathy, even though we see her from the position of a voyeur, unseen in the shadows of the room, and know next to nothing about her.
Masterly technique, a lack of cultural baggage, and a sense of mystery makes Vermeer the perfect painter for Tokyo's dominant art demographic.
C.B.Liddell
The Japan Times
10th October, 2008
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