Johannes Vermeer died on this day, in 1675

Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) passed away on this day December 15th, 1675.

He was 43 years old.

Vermeer’s small oeuvre is remarkable.

It is estimated that Vermeer created around 40 to 50 paintings, which is not a big number compared to other master painters of the time.

For example, Rembrandt made around 300 paintings and Frans Hals around 200.

Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890

Van Gogh was fascinated with the labour and life of peasants, as expressed in art and literature.

In his paintings and drawings, he prominently featured working men and women.

He believed that to truly capture ‘the heart of the people’, an artist must immerse himself in their world.

He saw labourers as simple, kind-hearted and courageous people, often holding them in higher regard than those he termed "civilized".

Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890 | Kunsthaus Zürich

7 masterpieces at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Frederick Carl Frieseke | The House in Giverny, 1912

When Frieseke first settled at Giverny in 1906, he stayed at Le Hameau (the hamlet) on the rue du Pressoir.

The two-story cottage surrounded by high walls on three sides enclosing a garden was next door to the home of Claude Monet and had previously been occupied by the American artist Lilla Cabot Perry.

The house shown in The House in Giverny, however, is most likely the Whitman house, the second of Frieseke's three Giverny residences.

Its green shutters and the distinctive open lattice-work of green trellises laden with flowers appear in a number of Frieseke's paintings, including Lilies, Tea Time in a Giverny Garden (both Daniel J. Terra Collection) and Hollyhocks, c. 1912-1913 (Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection).

The intimacy of Frieseke's small painting and his interest in decorative pattern links the artist more closely with the Nabi painters Vuillard and Bonnard than to his neighbour Monet or with Renoir, the French Impressionist he most admired.

The artist stated his creed published in a 1914 interview: "My one idea is to reproduce flowers in sunlight.

I do not suggest detail by form, as I have to keep it as pure as possible or the effect of brilliancy will be lost.

Of course, there is a limit to the strength of pigments, and one can but relatively give the impression of nature. I may see a glare of white light at noon, but I cannot render it literally [...]

I usually make my first notes and impressions with dashes of tempera, then I paint over this with small strokes in oil to produce the effect of vibration, completing as I go". | Source: © Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Frederick Carl Frieseke (American, 1874-1939) | The House in Giverny, 1912 | Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

The Tragic Life of Van Gogh by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam

Watch beauty directly;

See them through your soul’s door.

Don’t let technology snatch

the little time you have to relish real beauty.

Maybe this chance won’t repeat for us ever.

Know the value of encountering true beauties,

and don’t turn your back on them. | by Alireza Karimi Moghaddam.

Johannes Vermeer | View of Houses in Delft, 1658

View of Houses in Delft / Het Straatje, known as 'The Little Street' is an unusual painting in Vermeer’s oeuvre, and remarkable for its time as a portrait of ordinary houses.

The composition is as exciting as it is balanced.

The old walls with their bricks, whitewash, and cracks are almost tangible.

The location is Vlamingstraat 40-42 in Delft.

Vermeer’s aunt Ariaentgen Claes lived in the house at the right, with her children, from around 1645 until her death in 1670. | Source: © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jean-Baptiste Greuze | Le uova rotte, 1756

Anche se questo dipinto venne eseguito a Roma e presenta ambiente e costumi italiani, la fonte del soggetto ritratto è un quadro olandese del Seicento dell’artista Frans van Mieris il Vecchio (1635-1681), Le uova rotte (Museo dell’Ermitage, San Pietroburgo), che l'artista francese Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) conosceva attraverso un’ incisione.

Le uova rotte simboleggiano la perdita della verginità.

Il bambino che cerca di ricomporre le uova rappresenta l’ignara innocenza dell’infanzia.

Il quadro suscitò una reazione favorevole quando fu esibito al Salon di Parigi nel 1757. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean Baptiste Greuze | Broken Eggs, 1756 (detail) | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Co Breman | Dutch Palmzondag, Laren, 1914

Ahazueros Jacobus Breman, known as Co (1865-1938) was a Dutch painter.

He specialized in landscapes, farms and interior scenes, with figures, and was one of the first Pointillist painters in the Netherlands.

His father, Willem Fredrik Breman (1829-1875), owned a carpentry and blacksmithing shop. He had five siblings, including Evert Breman, a well-known architect.

Vincent van Gogh | Garden with Courting Couples, 1887

Van Gogh called this sunny park scene 'the painting of the garden with lovers'.

Couples in love are strolling under the young chestnut trees and sitting along the winding paths.

Essential Facts:

Title: Garden with Courting Couples: Square Saint-Pierre

Date: Paris, May 1887

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 75.0 cm x 113.0 cm

Current location: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Rembrandt's palette

Technical investigation of Rembrandt's (1606-1669) paintings in the possession of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister and in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Kassel) was conducted by Hermann Kühn in 1977.

The pigment analyses of some thirty paintings have shown that Rembrandt's palette consisted of the following pigments: lead white, various ochres, Vandyke brown, bone black, charcoal black, lamp black, vermilion, madder lake, azurite, ultramarine, yellow lake and lead-tin-yellow.

Synthetic orpiment was shown in the shadows of the sleeve of the jewish groom.

Edmond Bénard | Vincent van Gogh at the age of 34

This group photograph of the INHA fund - Institut national d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris, represent Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and the Nabis group on February 8, 1888 at the Académie Julian, 48 rue de Faubourg saint Denis, Paris.

Digitized by the library in 2010, published on the Digital Library in 2013 then posted on the Arago portal, this photograph appeared the same year in "Portraits d'ateliers: un album de photographs fin de siècle".

It is part of an album of photographs of artists' studios, purchased in 1958 at the Fabius gallery.

Edmond Bénard | Vincent van Gogh at the Académie Julian, 1888 | Institut national d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris (INHA)

Kees van Dongen (1877-1968)

Kees van Dongen è stato un pittore Franco-Olandese, uno dei principali Fauves.

Dipinse ballerini, cantanti, mascherate e teatro.

Van Dongen si guadagnò la reputazione per i suoi ritratti vistosi, soprattutto di donne.

Nato a Delfshaven, vicino a Rotterdam, Kees Van Dongen studiò prima in una scuola di disegno industriale, poi all’Accademia di Belle Arti.

Martin Desjardins | The Four Captives, 1682-1686

The "Louis XIV Victory Monument", also known as "Four Prisoners" or "Four Defeated Nations", was an elaborate trophy memorial celebrating the military and domestic successes of the early decades of Louis XIV's personal rule, primarily those during the Franco-Dutch War of 1672–1678, on the Place des Victoires (Victories' Square) in central Paris.

It was designed and sculpted by Martin Desjardins (French sculptor and stuccoist of Dutch birth, 1637-1694) between 1682-1686 on a commission by François d'Aubusson, Duke of La Feuillade.

Martin Desjardins | Spain or Hope (detail) | Louvre Museum

Erik Van Elven, 1969

Erik Van Elven grew up in a very creative family in the North of the Netherlands.

His parents were always very supportive about drawing and painting and both his older brother and younger sister also have a job as a creative.

Although he has no formal art education, he learned about creating images all his life.

Keimpe Van der Kooi, 1966

Keimpe van der Kooi is an Dutch painter, born in Amersfoort.

He graduated from the Classical Academy in Groningen and is also a teacher.

He likes to paint still-lifes in colorful ambiance.

In his paintings there always will be cloths, bowls, flowers and a beautiful sunlight.

As an artist, he already made a name for himself in various ways.

Rembrandt | The Artist's Mother, 1629 | Royal Collection

"An old Woman called 'The Artist's Mother'" by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) is a study in old age by a young, aspiring painter who rapidly gained a reputation for this kind of work before moving to Amsterdam to develop his career as a portraitist and history painter.

Executed towards the end of his time in Leiden (c.1629), this painting already reveals Rembrandt’s mastery of precise detail in the treatment of the folds of skin, the sunken eyes, the taut mouth and the prominent nose.

Rembrandt | The Artist's Mother, 1629 | Royal Collection

Herman Tulp, 1955 | Magic realism painter

Herman Tulp is an incredible Dutch painter who is best known for his intimate, nostalgic still lifes.

However, he has many subject to his repertoire such as landscapes, houses, cows, trains and models all characterized by his very own style of painting.

Clear and realistic, sober but colored and often provided with magic-realistic elements.

However, in recent years his paintings of women increasingly step to the forefront.

Vincent van Gogh | Paintings of peasants

Van Gogh had a particular attachment and sympathy for peasants and other working class people that was fueled in several ways.

He was particularly fond of the peasant genre work of Jean-François Millet and others.

He found the subjects noble and important in the development of modern art.

Van Gogh had seen the changing landscape in the Netherlands as industrialization encroached on once pastoral settings and the livelihoods of the working poor with little opportunity to change vocation.

Vincent van Gogh | Country road in Provence by night, 1890

Symbol of Provence

For Van Gogh, the cypress is the ultimate symbol of Provence.

"The cypresses still preoccupy me", he writes to his brother Theo, "I'd like to do something with them like the canvases of the sunflowers, because it astonishes me that no one has yet done them as I see them.

It's beautiful as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk.

And the green has such a distinguished quality".

Vincent van Gogh | Country road in Provence by night, 1890 | The Kröller-Müller Museum

Vincent van Gogh ad Arles, 1888-89

Il desiderio di conoscere il Mezzogiorno francese, con la sua luce e le sue tinte mediterranee così lontane dal cromatismo nordico, fu una buona occasione per assimilare gli stimoli artistici raccolti a Parigi e per porre fine alla convivenza con Théo, resa più difficile dal carattere irritabile di entrambi.

«Ho intenzione una volta o l'altra, appena posso, di andarmene nel Sud, dove c'è ancora più colore e ancora più sole [...] Quest'estate, quando dipingevo il paesaggio ad Asnières, vi ho visto più colore che in passato».

Il Meridione francese, luogo elettivo di Zola, Cézanne (che vi avevano trascorso l'infanzia) e di Monticelli (che vi era morto), rispose splendidamente alle esigenze di van Gogh, che vi si stabilì nel febbraio del 1888.

Vincent van Gogh | La maison de La Crau (The Old Mill), 1888

Vincent van Gogh | La maison de La Crau (The Old Mill), 1888 | Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Title: La maison de La Crau (The Old Mill);

Author: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, 1853-1890);

Date: 1888;

Dimensions: Support: 64.77 x 53.975 cm; framed: 83.18 x 73.02 x 8.89 cm;

Current location: Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.