Search - The Dutch Masters - Vermeer on DVD

You Better Work with What You Got!

Jeffery Mingo | Homewood, IL USA | 10/25/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"title: you bettah work with whatcha got!

From the jump, the documentary states that little is known about Vermeer and no portraits of him exist. It then says that his work didn't become celebrated until two centuries after his death. So the documentary is more of a deconstruction of his paintings, rather than a biographical sketch. There are only four interviewees, some men and some women; all British, rather than Dutch.

The work says he painted many women. They never give that fact a feminist reading, but I bet a woman's studies major could. I was actually fascinated by his male paintings. His men wear huge hats and capes. They seemed foppish to my 21st-century eyes. I wonder if that was his goal. Centuries before Marx and Hegel wrote, he painted a maid positively, as opposed to other contemporary painters who portrayed poor people as deceitful and dumb.

I know much more about French Impressionism that any other artistic school or national movement. This work was informative to me because I learned why Vermeer is so amazing. So many painters focused on humans and barely pay attention to their settings; cartographers only drew maps; rug makers only worked in their field. Vermeer could show fine details of people, maps, rugs, light, and other things all in one work."