Regrets, I have a few. One of them was not going to the Netherlands some 15 years ago or more when the most Vermeers that are ever going to be in the same place at the same time in this lifetime didn't quite seem to justify a holiday in itself at the time. It's a mistake that can never be rectified.So, when only 5 of them were due in London this summer it became a highly likely day out even if getting into and back out of London these days is less and less of a pleasure. But 5 represents a fair proportion of an artist of who we only have, is it, 36, extant camnvasses.
The exhibition is augmented by a number of mid-C17th Dutch contemporaries as well as musical instruments and a few music texts to go with them.
The very first item, on your right as you go in, is an astonishing, tiny painting by Carel Fabritius, A View of Delft, with a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall, 1652, 15.5 x 31.7 cm. Its strange perspective is perhaps accidental, though, as it was perhaps originally part of a 'perspective box' that would have made more sense of the panorama. It still, however, contains the recurrent theme of music as transient, the silence of the instruments only emphasizing how music inevitably passes.
For the most part, in other paintings, music is a social exercise, its harmony closely linked to love and courtship. Or so we are told. To me, it looked on several occasions as if the guileless young lady was concentrating on the music while her admirer's attention was at best divided between the music and plans for after the music had stopped.
Not so much for Vermeer himself, though, who had four pictures of young ladies playing music unattended while in The Music Lesson, a conveniently placed mirror shows the sideways glance on the girl's face and she's not daft. She knows exactly what's going on.
Among the instruments, a highlight is the octave virginal, a toy really, by Samuel Biderman II, of about 1620. Sadly not pictured in the catalogue, the bidding in words to describe it would begin with 'exquisite' and then shoot upwards. A luxury item for a leisured, well-off lady to pick out a little tune on, the painting she has to look at while she plays is a luxury all of its own and she could keep her sewing kit in it as well.
The Vermeers are in that last room with it, the star turn after the support acts have been on. We've had a fine Pieter de Hooch, two Jan Steen, two Brugghen but we've come to see Vermeer really. And immediately you go into the room, it seems as if they have been lit to better effect, like a rider in a bicycle race wearing a yellow jersey to show he is the overall leader, or David Beckham having yet another haircut to show he is the richest footballer. The word 'luminous' turns up again and again but it doesn't mean much until you see that effect. I scrutinized the lighting a couple of times from different angles to see if the Vermeers were getting an unfair share of attention but I'm sure they're not. It's in the painting.
While the literary text of the pictures might be all about harmony, invitations and composition, Vermeer's art is even more concerned with light. The very last room, as a sort of coda, explains recent research into Vermeer's technique and how he deliberately achieved it. Apparently it isn't just a matter of thinking that a bit of this lovely blue over here looks nice against that elegantly lit cream-coloured wall. Although that is a part of it. The catalogue explains something that you then realize you had known all along, how limited is the palette of colours that he uses. I might suggest that he possibly couldn't afford expensive paints in a wide range of colours but it is preferable to think that it was a conscious artistic decision and those were the tones he liked best. It is not as if the time, thought and effort expended on making such masterpieces suggests a cheapskate. Every inch of each canvas is apparently thought out, like every word in a great poem must be. It is not that some parts are slightly out of focus through lack of attention, it is to draw the eye to the real focus of the painting. And how, 350 years ago, one could get the folds of such a posh frock so right with just paint is hard to say, except Vermeer's contemporaries here were nowhere near as good at it and I don't think David Hockney does it much either.
And that is how, I suppose, the unbelievable genius is separated from the merely brilliant.
With a timed ticket, one expects to have a reasonable look at the pictures. It was full enough without being oppressively so. One always considers others with a sort of art gallery etiquette while making sure you see all you want to see for your money and read all the notes, which are in the catalogue to take home anyway. But the performance of relevant music timed for 3pm had a roomful of audience sitting expectantly a good twenty minutes ahead of it and some of them had obviously been there longer. An understatedly agitated crowd gathered, looking into the room from beyond where it was taped off, thinking that they were missing something. I'm not sure if the National Gallery achieved much with such a venture or if it caused more collateral disappointment. After a few minutes of listening from a disadvantaged vantage point, I concluded that I wasn't missing quite as much as they thought they were but it seemed a bit bungled and less than impressive. But not a blot, really, on a wonderful exhibition where the music was never going to enhance the paint by much and we all know what John Dowland's music sounds like, which is what was on the CD they were selling..
Vermeer is radiant and calm and all the things that one wants from art if technique, wonder and a sense of something else beyond is what you like. It looks quiet and charming but there's always more to it than that. The volume need not go above 7 or 8 to hear plenty going on.
I have a very moderate record of seeing famous people in real life and not all of the names are worthy of the mention anyway but I did just turn round in time a few years ago to see Rowan Williams, when Archbishop of Canterbury, on the way into a Prom of the Monteverdi Vespers. What else could it have been.
And similarly here, knowing that he is a big fan of the modern-day Vermeer, Hammershoi, on my way into the exhibition I passed the globe-trotting Python, teller of Ripping Yarns, and all-round good egg, Mr. Michael Palin, who was on his way out, as it were.
If it's good enough for him, it was certainly good enough for me.
