Vermeer: Much Cooler Than I Thought

In history, we're up to the 1600s and the Dutch Golden Age. I decided to pause here and round out the historical events by spending some time on things like Tulip Mania and the Dutch painters from that time. Yesterday we went over Rembrandt (I didn't know he did cool etchings!), today was Vermeer. As with most people, I was familiar with The Girl with a Pearl Earring, but I hadn't seen much else. I hadn't known that he had only done a few paintings each year, and that many of his paintings followed just a few themes. Some that we found:

• He used lots of blue, but also red and yellow with white walls
• Subjects were girls or young women
• Subjects were near windows, often open
• Reading or writing letters came up quite a bit
• Musical instruments were also common

For some reason, this all fascinated me. I found a great site on him that I plan to spend some time perusing.