Vermeer: Reception and Interpretation

Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Hardcover. VG-/VG- (light bumping to corners, light wear to block and dust jacket). Tan cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine, dark green dust jacket with color illustration on front, white lettering, xii, 288 pp, bw and color illustrations. This study interprets the suppositions underlying Vermeer's canonisation and addresses the critical problem of locating paintings in history. This book also makes a large contribution to the evolving discipline of the history of art. Contents include: pt. I. Idyll -- The German Reception of Dutch Art and Vermeer's Paintings of Social Life. 1. Hegel's Legacy to German Scholarship on Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting. 2. Vermeer's Paintings of Social Life as "Disturbed Idylls" 3. Temporality and Difference: "The Chinese Hat" -- pt. II. Fiction -- The French Reception of Vermeer and the Modernity of Vermeer's Cityscape. 4. French Travel Literature of the Nineteenth Century. 5. Art Criticism 1857-1913: The "Oriental" Vermeer. 6. The Modern Vermeer: Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. 7. Seriality and Originality: Vermeer's View of Delft, His "Identical World," and Dutch Painting in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. 8. Fernbild -- pt. III. Allegory -- The Question of Authority in Vermeer's The Art of Painting and Allegory of Faith. 9. Theories and Concepts of Allegory. 10. Vermeer's The Art of Painting. 11. Veritas Filia Temporis. 12. Vermeer's Allegory of Faith. Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-279) and index.