Art Appreciation: Vermeer and the Dutch Interior

At the centre is free and open discussion of Vermeer's work. It is important for this course to be .flexible enough to allow a group to follow its own pattern of interests as they emerge from looking at the paintings themselves. Areas of such exploration may well include...

· painting as a process of familiarisation with new urban realities. Did painting in seventeenth century Holland perform the familiarising task which the novel performed in eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain? This broad topic is likely to lead to discussion via Vermeer's paintings eg. of mistress-servant relations, of the importance of letter-writing, and the capitalist-colonialist values of the Dutch Republic.

· Vermeer's debt to Caravaggio, via the Utrecht Caravaggists. Why did they paint so many musicians?.

· Vermeer's realism. Does he really paint the world more accurately than contemporaries such as Gabriel Metsu? There are implications here both for how and what he paints.

· Vermeer as a Catholic painter. How did then-dominant Protestant values affect the painting of the time, and how important was Vermeer's 'exceptional' status as a Catholic?

· Painting and class. Who will have bought or commissioned paintings such as Vermeer's? What did they expect for their money?

· Why has Vermeer's reputation outstripped those of his contemporaries, and why did this not happen until the last two centuries?