Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) was a Dutch painter who is known for his local genre paintings. His paintings give a glimpse of delicate, domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Though Vermeer is regarded as one of the greatest painter of the Dutch Golden age today, he was not as famous during his lifetime. He was moderately successful during his lifetime and left his family in debt after his death. He created few paintings and most of them were set in two of his rooms because the paintings included the similar furniture and decorations. Even the characters in the paintings were similar, mostly women. The technique that Vermeer used in his paintings is known as pointille where he produced transparent colors by applying paint to the canvas in loosely granular layers. Vermeer’s paintings portray the life of an ordinary milkmaid to the sophisticated women living in a luxury. One of the main concerns has been about the possible use of camera obscura by Vermeer in his paintings. However, this has not been scientifically proven. Vermeer’s paintings may not have been very popular during his lifetime. But they have been inspiring the painters for many years now.