An arrangement of lemon yellow, pale blue and pearl grey: What Van Gogh saw in Johannes Vermeer

Summary Like many of his contemporaries, Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) held Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) in high regard. Unlike most of them, however, he never sought to imitate Vermeer directly. This article examines how Van Gogh’s admiration nevertheless informed his thinking about art: what traces of his study of Vermeer’s paintings can be identified in his theoretical reflections? Van Gogh is known with certainty to have been familiar with three works by Vermeer: View of Delft (1660/1661), Woman in blue reading a letter (1662/1663), and The lacemaker (1669–1670). He was also well acquainted with the writings of the critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger (1807–1869). In Thoré’s account, Vermeer emerged as a painter with a varied oeuvre, who was also a technically gifted artist, a great colourist, and a great realist. It was precisely this latter combination of qualities that strongly appealed to Van Gogh. From 1883 onwards, Van Gogh immersed himself in colour theory and began experimenting with complementary colour contrasts. During this period, he came to see in Vermeer an example of a painter who used the optical effects of colour and paint texture to create a convincing impression of objects. The discovery of this painterly approach led to a second realisation, namely that colour could also function as an autonomous means of expression. Of the colour combinations frequently found in Vermeer’s work, it was above all the pairing of warm yellow and cool blue that struck Van Gogh most forcefully, as evidenced by the repeated references in his letters. Only in the late 1880s did Van Gogh succeed in reconciling his views of colour as a mimetic instrument and as an expressive medium, once again with the help of Vermeer. In Arles, Van Gogh began to regard him as an artist who, through his personal artistic sensibility, was able to recognise the universal in the everyday reality, and managed to depict it, deploying the power of a limited but strong colour palette with great effectiveness. It was Vermeer’s combination of realism, colourism, and artistic individuality that, for Van Gogh, gave rise to a sense of timeless value.