Chasing Vermeer

A True Delight

On a recent Wednesday, I found myself with the good fortune of two hours to kill in Manhattan. When I’m stranded on this island in this manner, I employ the time-tested survival strategy of looking at the holy tetrology of annoying tryhard movie theaters (Metrograph, Angelika, Film Forum, Quad Cinema) to see if there’s anything playing in the exact window I have free. The hot island sun beating upon my weary brow, I alit upon the single option that would leave me free at the time I needed to be free—a 4:15 showing of an 89-minute long documentary about curating a large Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum.

The movie follows this guy, Gregor Weber, a man who has infinite potential to be annoying but in the end is just sort of nervous and sweet, as he makes all of the necessary arrangements to get 27 Vermeer paintings to Amsterdam in time for the exhibition.

Three big, interesting things happen in this movie:

1. There is one Vermeer painting in private hands. It’s owned by this ↑ billionaire. He has the worst vibes imaginable. Two big Vermeer guys sit down in this movie and dissect his painting, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, and it’s very clear that they consider it to be Vermeer’s least impressive work. At one point, they ask the billionaire if they can do some analysis on the painting, and you see it getting worked on and handled with extreme care and gloved hands—and then the owner shows up to hear about it and starts callously tossing it around in his bare hands. Everyone in the room is visibly wincing but no one can say anything, because it’s his painting. Some of the experts are even suspect that it’s actually painted by Vermeer. I guess I didn’t know much about Vermeer going into this, but there are a lot of questions around attribution of his paintings since he was such a secretive and enigmatic figure, and his oeuvre is pretty small.

   I liked this part of the movie a lot. The fine art world has to make these dark arrangements with the wealthy all the time, since no one else on Earth would give a shit about funding their work, and the wealthy only do it to have a bunch of trophies to brag about. Pretty sad, because all these guys who work at the museum and stuff truly genuinely are so moved by the art that they cry when they look too closely at it. Must suck to love something that much and have it be totally dependent on funding from a guy who made his money destroying the planet.

   

2. They go into detail about how Vermeer likely used a camera obscura to paint his paintings. I’ve since been told that this was explored in the movie Tim’s Vermeer, but I thought it was really interesting—basically, Vermeer projected an image onto a canvas and essentially traced over it to create his works. Whatever, they’re still amazing paintings!!! I couldn’t do that shit.

   

   Girl with a Flute

3. This painting is held at the National Gallery in DC, and during the course of the documentary, the Americans did a bunch of studies of it and determined that it wasn’t a Vermeer. Their evidence? That telltale Vermeer green earth used for skin shadows was too sloppily applied, and the girl is looking directly at camera. The Dutch, on the other hand, were like, who else would it even be? No one else could do a painting like this. This was a very thrilling moment in the film—true scholars butting heads, all completely running off of vibes, flying to Europe and the US to share their opinions. It’s funny because the Dutch guys seem to really question the billionaire-held painting, which has been widely accepted as genuine (perhaps to hold its valuation?), but seem to think this painting is undeniably Vermeer, when the rest of the world isn’t so sure.

I thought this movie rocked. It was pretty engaging throughout, and hearing art historians talk about art is pretty moving because they all got into it because they love it, and they see things I just don’t even consider. I’ve gone down a “Vermeer hole” since seeing the film. He’s a good artist!

Did you guys enjoy this one? No jokes or fiction, just me talking about a movie I saw. Written in pretty dumb prose too. Expect more of this as I continue to give my brain cells up to the ravages of time :(

Nabeel’s Footnote

I’ll start trying again one day. Maybe next week. I think podcasts and Substacks have been a net negative for society. Trying to figure out how to square that belief here.