Shop art print and framed art View of Delft by Johannes Vermeer

View of Delft (Gezicht op Delft) is a painting by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. The oil on canvas was painted between 1659 and 1660, and is currently on display at the Mauritshuis in The Hague. This View of Delft depicts part of Vermeer's home town in the form of a veduta, a highly detailed painting of a cityscape. Along with The Lane, it is the only landscape in the painter's oeuvre, and the only representation of a vast space. Delft is depicted from the south, looking north across the river port. The Schie Canal can be seen in the foreground, framed by the Schiedam (left) and Rotterdam (right) gates, and the New Protestant Church (Nieuwe Kerk) in the background, lit by the sun's rays. This church has no bells, which makes it possible to date the painting, as these were placed from May 1660 onwards. The conical tower of the Perroquet brewery can be seen, which has since disappeared. If you look closely at the painting, you can see that Vermeer used a technique similar to pointillism in his treatment of light, with the juxtaposition of small touches of different shades. It is possible that Vermeer used the darkroom technique for this painting, as for others. Marcel Proust described The View from Delft in a letter to his friend Jean-Louis Vaudoyer as "the most beautiful painting in the world". He described the painting in the fifth volume of his novel In Search of Lost Time, La Prisonnière, after discovering it himself at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 1921. In his novel, [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the classical period. It belongs to the baroque style.

 

« View of Delft » is kept at Mauritshuis, The Hague, The Netherlands.

 

Find the full description of View of Delft by Johannes Vermeer on Wikipedia.