Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum

The hottest ticket in Amsterdam

Paintings are fascinating because of their relationship to stories as much as their appearance. The Vermeer exhibition at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum shows how important narrative is for our understanding of art, immediately deploying two storytelling devices guaranteed to create drama. First, the stakes are high. This is the only chance we’ll ever get to see so many of his paintings together in one place (twenty-eight out of a total of thirty-seven). Second, it’s next to impossible to get a ticket (the four-month exhibition sold out within days of opening), so it has an allure and grants kudos to anyone who manages to get in, like a genteel equivalent of Berghain.

Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft, c.1660.

These restrictions make Vermeer the talk of the restaurants of Amsterdam, the departure lounge of Schiphol airport and all corners of polite society in the British Isles. Though the crowds in front of the paintings are as deep as the bar on New Year’s Eve, there is a hushed and reverential atmosphere as people patiently wait their turn to get served. They are not only here to witness a series of paintings, but to participate in something intangible that has temporarily taken on material form: art history. The Rijksmuseum has even commissioned a film where a camera takes you through the show, pointing to its importance as an event in its own right.

Unanswered questions create an air of mystery and suspense. (Did Vermeer use a camera obscura? Did he convert to Catholicism?) And there are sub-plots, such as Vermeer’s own rise to prominence. In 1888, Vincent van Gogh was able to write the following in a letter to the painter Émile Bernard: ‘Do you, for instance, know a painter called Vermeer, who, among other things, painted a very beautiful and pregnant Dutch lady? The palette of this remarkable painter is blue, lemon yellow, pearl grey, black, white.’

Johannes Vermeer, Woman Reading a Letter, c. 1663.

As it happened, these two Dutch painters were to have more in common than anyone could have predicted. Both of their posthumous reputations far exceed any fame they enjoyed in their lifetimes (Vermeer was respected in and around Delft but nothing like the sensation he is now). Both died young and tragically. Following the crash of the art market in 1672, Vermeer couldn’t support his eleven children, and died apparently of stress three years later, leaving his widow in debt and his work obscure. Yet from the middle of the nineteenth century, his reputation steadily climbed until he became what he is today.

Van Gogh has his own museum around the corner. Though it is a good museum, its fixedness inevitably tames and contains his story. In contrast, the scarcity of Vermeer’s work and the one-off nature of the exhibition produce the sense that his story is still unfolding in real time, and audiences don’t want to miss out on the action. A once-in-a-lifetime show of one of the world’s most popular artists, Vermeer has the press release to end all press releases. The best part is that with this exhibition the hype is merited. Far from being drowned in hyperbole, the paintings live up to the event. Vermeer tells a true story, and the pictures are there to prove it.  

Vermeer is at the Rijksmuseum from 10 February to 4 June 2023.