Dutch master Johnnes Vermeer was born on October 31, 1632, the son of a weaver. Very little is known about Vermeer's early life as an artist or of his apprenticeship or even if he traveled outside of the Netherlands. There is also very little information to connect Vermeer with contemporaries like Gerard Ter Borch, Jan Steen or Peiter De Hooch, who were all active in the city of Delft along with Vermeer.
Vermeer's painting is distinguished by a preternatural facility with perspective and light . Because his work uses almost photographic detail in its use of natural lighting, it is assumed that he used a camera obscura to project his subjects onto his canvas. And while many of his paintings seem to have the same subject in their depiction of a mostly female upper class at their leisure, his paintings have an immediacy that none of his contemporaries had, and canvases such as The Lacemaker and the Girl With The Red Hat have a timeless quality to them.
There are two excellent site to view Vermeer's work online:
Vermeer and the Art of Painting is an excellent site that offers a healthy excerpt from Arthur K . Wheelock , Jr.'s book of the same name that provides a detailed study of Vermeer's subjects and methods.
The Paintings Of Vermeer site is even more comprehensive. It features a clickable map of thumbnails of all Vermeer's paintings that expand into excellent reproductions. There are also many links and resources to be found at this wellspring of Vermeer resources, including links to papers about his life in Delft, articles about the camera obscura, academic papers and even parodies of Vermeer.
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