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Analyzing The Paintings In Timothy Brook Vermeer's Hat

Decent Essays

In the book by Timothy Brook, Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, the author analysis several paintings of the Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer. In these several paintings, Vermeer, beautifully depicts scenes from daily life. His paintings are from the Dutch Golden Age and are incredibly realistic and the way he shows light and color are strikingly gorgeous. Although Vermeer’s painting skills are developed the subject of his paintings illustrate quite simple subjects, showing middle class daily life and tasks. However, Brooks takes readers past the beautiful colors we see on the surface and digs a little deeper into each one, going in and unraveling the scene to analysis things like globalization and world trade in the 1600s. Beginning with Vermeer’s painting called View of Delft, done in 1661, this painting done in oil paints shows a landscape scene from a port. The painting takes place in Vermeer’s hometown of Delft in the Netherlands and depicts a scene from his daily life. One of the first things that the author points out about …show more content…

Similarly to the previous painting, Brooks points out another foreign object in the picture. A pile of fruit in the foreground of the painting is held by a bowl from China. The blue and white dish would have been porcelain, and became a popular decoration in Europe to have. Brook also makes an interesting point that the letter that the woman is reading in the painting could be from her husband who is traveling for trade, possibly to bring home more Chinese porcelain to her. This part of globalization is interesting because it shows how people were fascinated by foreign objects, and to possess them became something that was special and a unique object to own. It could also show that you had money or traveled, having foreign objects in your

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