Vermeer's Hat: A Review

Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, by Timothy Brook, Bloomsbury Press, London UK, 2008, 272 pp., $27.95 (cloth).

As the subtitle indicates, Mr. Brook isn't writing a work of aesthetic appreciation of Vermeer's paintings. He is using them as an entry point for broad observations about the seventeenth century, global trade, and the route from there to here.

Still, Vermeer gets the starring role as does a certain beaver-pelt hat.

The hat is there (aside from the title) in the cover art, which reproduces "Officer and Laughing Girl." The officer, in full uniform and with the hat slanted a bit to the left, has his back to us, because his attention is on the young woman to the right and mid-background.

She's grinning but it's a bit of an overstatement to say that she's laughing. Still, it appears that the officer has come a-courting and is doing well.

The scene gives Mr. Brook the chance to inform us that the custom whereby a man would remove his hat indoors, especially in the presence of a lady, had not yet developed.

"When Vermeer painted a man without a hat, he was someone at work: a music teacher or a scientist. A courting man did not go hatless."

Behind the recipient of his attentions is a map, serving as a wall decoration. It would not have been cheap -- the map, along with the furnishings and the heavy elaborate window, indicates that this is a comfortable home. She's quite a catch.

That hat, though, leads Brook into a discussion of the 17th century trade in pelts, and this gets us a very different sort of map before we've turned too many pages into this discussion -- a map of the trade routes of the Great Lakes region of North America, where those fashionable beavers were to be found.

All in all, a fine book by Mr. Brooks, though structured as a bit of a stew.

"My Kid Could Paint That!"

The headline of this entry is also the title of a new documentary film by Amir Bar-Lev.

Sounds fascinating. (It isn't playing anywhere in my area, so this is very much a hearsay blog entry.)

The movie concerns the Olmstead family, celebrity, and the whole idea of a prodigy. Are we as a public too eager for the next child genius, the next Mozart?

Maria Olmstead, the 4-year-old painter at the heart of this documentary, was a media sensation. Jane Pauley introduced a segment about her, "The hottest new phenomenon to hit the art scene is a painter who arrives at the gallery in a car seat."

Then came 60 Minutes, with an expose, suggesting that her father was actually doing the work, and the searchlight turned ugly.

Then, in turn, came Mr. Bar-Lev, who seems to have begun work on this movie with the idea that Maria really was a genius/prodigy, that he could prove it, thus rebuking 60 Minutes and chilvarously rescuing the Olmsteads.

Things didn't work out as he had hoped, though. I understand the over-all tone of the movie is one of ambivalence.

But finally, as I indicated above, Maria isn't really its subject. We are. The idea of the "prodigy" and our eagerness to celebrate, then to tear down the "imposter" when our expectations aren't quite met -- that's the subject.

Meta-Painting

If the title to this blog entry doesn't make you yawn, if you think there might be something brilliant or original in the idea of a "painting about painting," then this story might suit you:
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=ac31b57d-8804-4189-81ed-77f78acb49f6.

But if it DOES make you yawn, consider this instead. In an episode of The Simpsons, the bartender Moe re-models his bar to appeal to the fashionable crowd. Along with other odd furnishing in the new Moes's, there's a television set hanging from the wall that shows an unblinking eye.

Homer asks Moe, "What's with the eye?" setting up the following brilliant dialog.

Moe: "Its' a pomo thing."

Homer: (Baffled expression on face) "Pomo?"

Moe: "Post-modern"

Homer is now silent, the baffled expression remains, Moe breaks the silence.

Moe: "Weird for the sake of weird."

Homer: "Ahhhhh!"

Van Gogh Discovery

Curators at a museum in Croatia report that they've found a new Van Gogh.

Apparently, they simply asked themselves, "what is this thing in storage in our attic?" and unwrapped it. Then said, "Gee, those brushstrokes look familiar" and called in an expert on Dutch art.

That expert, John Sillevis, says it is Van Gogh.

Here's a link to the story as covered by a newspaper based in Berlin, Germany.

http://jurnalo.com/jurnalo/storyPage.do?story_id=28610

Personally, I'm just astonished that the world of museum curating is as casual as this story makes it appear.