movie review close to vermeer

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, close to vermeer.

Now streaming on:

There's a moment in Suzanne Raes's "Close to Vermeer," a documentary about the curation of a Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where Abbie Vandivere, a conservator and researcher at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Netherlands, describes the first time she held Vermeer's The Girl with the Pearl Earring  in her hands. Her exhilaration and awe is palpable. Even the memory makes her eyes shine. To actually hold the physical object! "Close to Vermeer" is a gentle, thoughtful documentary, populated by knowledgeable individuals like Vandivere, experts at the top of their fields who have maintained their passion and love for the subject.

The documentary covers a lot of ground. It shows the challenges of curating a show of this magnitude (Vermeer's very small body of work—just 34 paintings—is scattered over the globe). It also extensively gets into the various controversies surrounding "authorship," particularly with a couple of contested paintings. Both sides make their case as to why this or that work is or is not a Vermeer. These controversies sometimes make international headlines, quite a development for a painter who spent the two centuries after his death in almost total obscurity.

The main figure in "Close to Vermeer," besides the artist himself, is George Weber, curator of the Vermeer exhibition, feeling the pressure to add new scholarship to accompany the show. It's not enough to just put the paintings on the walls. He wants to deepen understanding, and he also wants to maybe settle the debate on the contested Vermeers once and for all. 

Weber describes the first moment he ever saw a Vermeer as a teenager: "I actually fainted." Weber is a very controlled and elegant man, but emotion keeps coming up in him. He feels passionately about the subject. His comments are sprinkled with gems like: "[Vermeer] seems to know that warm yellow light has cold blue shadows." A comment like this helps me to see what he sees. The film is filled with almost microscopic shots of Vermeer's work, the tiny cracks in the paint, the shadowy brush strokes, zooming in on the details. Pieter Roelofs, Weber's co-curator, travels to museums worldwide to negotiate lending out "their" Vermeers for the exhibition. It's a fascinating inside glimpse of backroom dealings at a very high level.

Along with these practical concerns, there are "guides" who help place Johannes Vermeer in a larger context. People like Abbie Vandivere and Jonathan Janson, a painter and Vermeer expert. He is the one who points out the creases in the yellow shawl of one of the contested paintings. He thinks they look crude, not as detailed as they should be. He has opinions. Weber visits him to discuss these issues. They spend time discussing colors, shadows, brush strokes, and the mysteries still surrounding Vermeer, his time, his life, and his work.

We know a lot more about Rembrandt, Vermeer's contemporary, than we do about Vermeer. Rembrandt was prolific and versatile; his work was clearly influenced by Italian masters—all those huge shadowy portraits—and he almost obsessively put himself into paintings, the Dutch Golden Age verge of a selfie. Rembrandt experienced much success in his life. 

Vermeer, on the other hand, had modest success and was not prolific at all. His paintings are all quite small in size and feature the same rooms, exquisitely rendered in tiny detail. In each, you see the same light sources, the same utensils, and maybe even the same people. He clearly painted people he knew intimately, and his primary subjects were women. There is no distance in approach from his subjects, no idealization or overt flattery. They are seen in homey settings, making lace, playing the virginal, sipping wine offered by a suitor. These are not "court" paintings. The experts here are all very good teachers.

There's something soothing about "Close to Vermeer." I'm the daughter of a rare book collector, a man who spent his free time tracking down books (mostly by Irish authors, primarily Francis Stuart). He'd show us the copyright page of his latest acquisition, and explain why it was relevant. He'd tell us stories about the publication, he'd gently turn the pages, treating the book with respect. This was the air I breathed as a child. And so there's something soothing about listening to people sharing their knowledge, helping us understand why something is rare or special, unique or valuable.

In a world of "hot takes" and uninformed "takedowns," where expertise is increasingly de-valued across the board, the experts in "Close to Vermeer" are a comforting bunch. They know a lot, they share what they know, and they help us to not just look  at a Vermeer, but to see .

Now playing in theaters. 

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Peyton Robinson

Dad & Step-Dad

Carlos aguilar.

Irena's Vow

Christy lemire.

Apples Never Fall

Cristina escobar.

Simon Abrams

We Were the Lucky Ones

Robert daniels, film credits.

Close To Vermeer (2023)

• Suzanne Raes

Latest blog posts

The Overlook Film Festival Highlights, Part 2: The Hands of Orlac, Kill Your Lover, Dead Mail, Red Rooms

Why Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Remains Unforgettable

A New Skin: Losing Control of Your Body in the 2020s

Ebertfest 2024 Announces Full Lineup, With Guests Including Eric Roberts, Mariel Hemingway, Larry Karaszewski, and More

Review: Vermeer’s Enduring Appeal for Filmmakers

Create an FP account to save articles to read later and in the FP mobile app.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

• World Brief
• Editors’ Picks
• Africa Brief
• China Brief
• Latin America Brief
• South Asia Brief
• Situation Report
• Flash Points
• War in Ukraine
• Israel and Hamas
• U.S.-China competition
• Biden's foreign policy
• Trade and economics
• Artificial intelligence
• Asia & the Pacific
• Middle East & Africa

Inside the GOP’s Foreign Policy

Ones and tooze, foreign policy live.

Spring 2024 Issue

Print Archive

FP Analytics

• In-depth Special Reports
• Issue Briefs
• Power Maps and Interactive Microsites
• FP Simulations & PeaceGames
• Graphics Database

The Atlantic & Pacific Forum

Principles of humanity under pressure, fp global health forum 2024, fp @ unga79.

By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time.

Your guide to the most important world stories of the day

Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent

The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week

Weekly update on what’s driving U.S. national security policy

Evening roundup with our editors’ favorite stories of the day

One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture

Weekly update on developments in India and its neighbors

A curated selection of our very best long reads

Vermeer’s Enduring Appeal for Filmmakers

If you missed the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of his work in amsterdam, this documentary is the next best thing..

It was this time last year when tourists were flooding into the Netherlands, and not just to see the tulip gardens. From February through June, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum displayed 28 of the 37 known paintings by Dutch Golden Age master Johannes Vermeer. As the Guardian ’s reviewer wrote in the equivalent of an all-caps email, it was “one of the most thrilling exhibitions ever conceived.” The New York Times called the show “perfectly argued, perfectly paced, as clear and uncontaminated as the light streaming through those Delft windows.” Both publications remarked (as did anyone looking for a rationalization while booking a KLM flight) that a staging of this magnitude would never happen again.

Though 650,000 people visited the blockbuster show, that still leaves many who may have hung a poster of The Milkmaid in their first grown-up kitchen wishing that they could have gone. Luckily, Dutch documentarian Suzanne Raes had her cameras rolling during the lengthy—and surprisingly controversial—run-up to the exhibition, during which the curators worked diligently to convince other museums, and one American collector, to part with their precious paintings.

The resulting film, Close to Vermeer , is now rentable for just a few florin (or whatever currency you use) via most major streaming platforms. It is engaging and even, at times, touching.

The finite number of the 17th-century master’s works has long been part of the allure, and Close to Vermeer leans into this to give each entry in the catalog its spotlight. The mastermind co-curator behind the exhibit, checking his list like George Clooney crewing up for the next Ocean’s Eleven -style caper, is the Rijksmuseum’s Gregor Weber—a mild-mannered man whose passion for the mysterious painter powers him through all bureaucratic hurdles. Just describing the impact of Vermeer’s art can bring him to tears, proving that he’s the right man for the job. And that he intends it to be his last before retirement makes the project all the more poignant.

The documentary quickly introduces the painter—and Vermeer scholar Jonathan Janson—to explain to those of us who skipped art history just why these paintings are so special. We also meet the effervescent Abbie Vandivere, a Canadian-raised Princeton University alum living in The Hague who is, essentially, the caretaker of Girl With a Pearl Earring , and seems to have an almost supernatural connection to one of the most famous images in Western art. (There’s a humorous detour into the Mauritshuis museum’s gift shop , brimming with Girl kitsch.)

Also in the mix is Thomas Kaplan , a New York-based billionaire who owns one of the largest collections of Dutch art. As with beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder to determine if Kaplan comes across as a benevolent caretaker or a bit of a braggart with the shiniest toys. Raes, the filmmaker, tips her hand a bit when she cuts to the faces of conservators who are aghast at how he somewhat brusquely handles Young Woman Seated at a Virginal , one of only two Vermeers that are privately owned.

Every good movie needs a villain, though Kaplan is a little too goofy to fit that bill. Better is the stern representative of the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum in the not-exactly-bustling burg of Braunschweig, Germany, who refuses to consider parting with The Girl With the Wine Glass for this once-in-a-lifetime show. Though hundreds of thousands of people would be able to see it in Amsterdam, the reason for the refusal is that local students need to view it for their exams, and deviating from this routine would cause disruption.

Also, sadly, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City refuses to part with two of its five Vermeers , because this would violate a no-lending stipulation made in their bequests. (To which any reasonable person should shout back “oh, come on, the guy’s dead !!”) A third from the Met, Young Woman With a Water Pitcher , is deemed too fragile to travel, as are works held in Vienna and Great Britain. The Astronomer , usually at the Louvre in Paris, is on loan in Abu Dhabi and cannot be moved.

Whereas the Met brought Americans shame for their unwillingness to play ball, New York’s Frick Collection is eager to share its three works , as is the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., with its four . But here’s where things get really wacky. Maybe the National Gallery only has three Vermeers?

Just a few months before the show, the National Gallery, after careful study, declares that Girl With a Flute , one of its most valued paintings, was actually a fraud . Though the Washingtonians make a strong case, Weber and his team at the Rijksmuseum reject their conclusion, and say it still counts. This leads to an emergency closed-door conclave of art evaluators and far more tension than you would expect in a nice documentary about a museum exhibit.

What one comes away with after watching Close to Vermeer is both an understanding of the artist’s greatness and the impact that his work has had on so many people’s lives. The mystery of Vermeer—about whom almost no biographical information is known, who has no record of apprenticeship with other masters, who achieved no fame in his lifetime, and whose impoverished widow sold paintings to buy bread—has proven to be a rich source for filmmakers in recent years.

The most famous example is the 2003 British film Girl With a Pearl Earring , a Masterpiece Theatre -esque fabrication of Vermeer’s process in creating his most famous work. Colin Firth plays the gloomy genius with flowing locks and an eternal scowl, capturing light up in his attic while avoiding his nagging wife and mother-in-law. Scarlett Johansson plays a wide-eyed new maid named Griet, who becomes Vermeer’s muse—and, as I am sure you can imagine, many aching glances of longing are passed between them. (Recent Academy Award-winner Cillian Murphy also pops up as the handsomest young butcher at the Delft marktplaats .)

Based on a bestselling novel—and pure conjecture—it’s far from a masterpiece, though there are plenty of impressive period details. And it’s certainly lit and framed well, as any movie about Vermeer damned well better be. The sequences of Firth and Johansson grinding lapis to make the perfect blue pigment is a none-too-subtle excuse to show sexual tension, but also speaks to the long hours put in by artists of this era to make their canvases sing.

Which brings us to a big question: how the hell did Vermeer do it? As with Shakespeare and Mozart , there are conspiracy theories. With Vermeer, the question isn’t about authorship, but whether he was an artist with an unfathomable gift or a clever tinkerer who made a scientific breakthrough, embracing new technologies. Even the revenant Close to Vermeer allows that there is evidence to suggest that the Dutch painter had his hands on a still pretty new gizmo, a camera obscura.

More credence (and some even say proof) regarding the latter concept can be found in the quite whimsical 2013 film Tim’s Vermeer . Produced by the magicians/pranksters Penn & Teller along with Farley Ziegler, the documentary follows Tim Jenison, an inventor, computer whiz, and, importantly, not a painter, who becomes obsessed with trying to recreate Vermeer’s methods.

Over years of sleuthing it out (and suffering setbacks that only convince him he is on the right path), Jenison—who, again, is not a painter—is able to perfectly copy Vermeer’s The Music Lesson . First, he recreates the Dutch artist’s studio (this itself takes almost a year) then, setting up a series of lenses and mirrors, he very slowly matches each color he sees dot by dot. The film argues that Vermeer did not approach his blank canvas with a vision, but worked, in a way, as a human camera. That long process could explain why Vermeer’s output is so manageable, even with smaller paintings.

We’ll never know if Jenison’s theory is correct, but several experts, including British painter David Hockney, seem convinced by the end. Importantly, the movie insists that if the theory is correct, there is still great artistry in how Vermeer designed his tableaux, the creativity in devising this method, and the tenacity needed to conquer the task.

And if all of that doesn’t slake your Vermeer thirst, there’s the 2019 drama The Last Vermeer , in which Guy Pearce stars as Han van Meegeren, a Dutch art forger—bad!—who hoodwinked the Nazis into buying fake Vermeers—OK, that part is good!

Adolf Hitler’s love of art is well known (you should watch the fantastic Burt Lancaster picture The Train for more about that). And for a stretch, he did possess Vermeer’s The Art of Painting , which now hangs, somewhat controversially , in Vienna’s Kunsthistoriches Museum. The Last Vermeer , in addition to being an entertaining yarn, paints an interesting portrait of a man who was heralded after the war as a resistance hero but may have just been a typical swindler. Of course, the movie art lovers would most like to see is one in which detectives finally find The Concert , one of 13 artworks—which also included paintings by Rembrandt, Edgar Degas, and Édouard Manet—that were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. Sadly, a happy ending to this—unlike previous stolen Vermeers , which were eventually restored—remains in the realm of fantasy. For now.

Jordan Hoffman is a film critic and entertainment journalist living in Queens, New York.

Join the Conversation

Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription.

Already a subscriber? Log In .

Subscribe Subscribe

View Comments

Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now.

Not your account? Log out

Please follow our comment guidelines , stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs.

Change your username:

I agree to abide by FP’s comment guidelines . (Required)

Confirm your username to get started.

The default username below has been generated using the first name and last initial on your FP subscriber account. Usernames may be updated at any time and must not contain inappropriate or offensive language.

More from Foreign Policy

Israel is facing an iraq-like quagmire.

Six months in, there’s still no plan for after the war, U.S. officials say.

NATO Doesn’t Have Enough Troops

For the first time in decades, NATO has a plan to fight Russia. Now it just needs the forces to do it.

Biden’s ‘Coalitions of the Willing’ Foreign-Policy Doctrine

The latest flurry of U.S. diplomacy shows how the president is all about “minilateralism.”

The New Idea of India

Narendra Modi’s reign is producing a less liberal but more assured nation.

Iran’s Attack on Israel—What Happens Next?

Arab countries have israel’s back—for their own sake, can israel harness its rare moment of regional support, why modi is so popular, fear and hoarding on ukraine’s eastern front, russia just helped swing a european election, african lending needs a better world bank, hezbollah retaliates for israel killing two militant commanders, the world’s biggest election is set to begin.

Sign up for World Brief

FP’s flagship evening newsletter guiding you through the most important world stories of the day, written by Alexandra Sharp . Delivered weekdays.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Civil War Link to Civil War
• Monkey Man Link to Monkey Man
• Scoop Link to Scoop

New TV Tonight

• The Sympathizer: Season 1
• Under the Bridge: Season 1
• Conan O'Brien Must Go: Season 1
• Our Living World: Season 1
• The Spiderwick Chronicles: Season 1
• Orlando Bloom: To the Edge: Season 1
• The Circle: Season 6
• Dinner with the Parents: Season 1
• Jane: Season 2

Most Popular TV on RT

• Fallout: Season 1
• Baby Reindeer: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• Ripley: Season 1
• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• Parasyte: The Grey: Season 1
• Sugar: Season 1
• Franklin: Season 1
• A Gentleman in Moscow: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• The Sympathizer: Season 1 Link to The Sympathizer: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

MGM: 100 Years, 100 Essential Movies

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Immaculate Director Michael Mohan’s Five Favorite Horror Films

Fallout : What to Expect in Season 2

• Trending on RT
• The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
• Play Movie Trivia
• Baby Reindeer

Close to Vermeer Reviews

This documentary has given me the tools not only to see Vermeer’s works differently, but has fostered an appreciation and admiration of the artist that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Full Review | Dec 1, 2023

Vermeer is and will forever remain an enigma and an anomaly to the art world. Whether by design or not, he left us with just the work, charging us to complete an impossible-to-solve portrait of the man.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 12, 2023

A substantive and illuminating documentary on the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer and his unique work.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 25, 2023

An engrossing 79-minute exploration of the experts, museums and debates that continue to engage with the artist and his legacy.

Full Review | Original Score: 8.0/10 | Jul 25, 2023

There are many takeaways from this remarkable film, not the least of which is the sheer enjoyment of seeing something from the inside out even if you couldn’t see the exhibit itself.

Full Review | Jul 16, 2023

A new perspective on the curator's calling, and the work of Vermeer himself.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 13, 2023

This engagingly low-key inquiry globe-trots to extract wisdom from conservators, dealers, collectors, restorationists, curators, and others obsessed with this artist’s legacy.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2023

Insightful and irresistible.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 28, 2023

At just a 79 minute run time, I found that I consider it too long...At the same time, though, I found it too short – it fails to fully explore the different paths it tries to take. I love all the Vermeer paintings, though.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jun 21, 2023

For those who didn’t have the great fortune to attend in person, we have Raes’ insider look at just what the folks who mounted Essential Vermeer think makes a Vermeer a Vermeer.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jun 13, 2023

Close to Vermeer understands that great art isn’t just about the work itself – the craft, innovative techniques, and influence; it’s about the feelings a painting provokes in the individual observing it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 9, 2023

Raes makes a picture about an exhibition about pictures as entertaining and informative as seemingly possible.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jun 9, 2023

Anyone who loves to spend time in a gallery simply must see this documentary.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2023

Seeing the depiction of the renown artist in such a delightful film is a real treat and much appreciated.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jun 6, 2023

Insight and intrigue are on offer from leading Vermeer experts in this engaging documentary about the “Sphinx of Delft” and the work that has fascinated art lovers for almost 400 years.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jun 1, 2023

This gripping film lives up to its title, immersing you in art without resorting to kitschy spectacle.

Full Review | Original Score: 78/100 | May 31, 2023

If the film can’t rival the experience of seeing the art first-hand, it still leaves us in no doubt as to why Vermeer makes people feel so utterly verklempt.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 30, 2023

A gentle, thoughtful documentary, populated by knowledgeable individuals.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 26, 2023

It literally lets you see the artist’s works more closely than you are likely ever to have done before, as they go under the microscope to reveal forensic secrets. The results will change the way you think about Vermeer forever.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 26, 2023

You don’t have to be an art history buff to appreciate this deep-dive into Vermeer's unique talent and the ways in which his paintings have a lasting impact centuries later.

Full Review | May 26, 2023

• COMING SOON
• OUT NOW - US
• COMING SOON - US

• COMPETITIONS

Eye For Film >> Movies >> Close To Vermeer (2023) Film Review

Close to vermeer.

Reviewed by: Jennie Kermode

You wait years for a documentary about the Dutch Baroque Period’s most famous painter and then two come along at once. Hot on the heels of Exhibition On Screen’s Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition comes Suzanne Raes’ Close To Vermeer, which centres on the same exhibition at the Rijksmuseum but, you will be pleased to hear, takes a different and complementary approach. Following curators Gregor Weber and Pieter Roelofs, and conservators Abbie Vandivere and Anna Krekeler, it literally lets you see the artist’s works more closely than you are likely ever to have done before, as they go under the microscope to reveal forensic secrets. The results will change the way you think about Vermeer forever.

These are passionate people (one describes fainting when he first encountered Vermeer paintings directly) so casual viewers may at first feel a little uncertain, but Raes knows what she’s doing and soon begins to unfold a series of mysteries which will intrigue anyone with the least interest in the subject. In an early scene, a close examination of The Little Street calls attention to the one most fundamental to the fascination this artist invokes. That brickwork which looks almost photo-realistic is revealed as an assemblage of tiny, differently coloured dots. How did Vermeer figure out how to assemble them to such effect? We know little about his working process, and practically nothing about how he tested colours. The red shutter in that painting may be what catches the eye, but knowing how to seduce a viewer is one thing. Vermeer’s optincal insights are quite another, and point to an interest in technological innovation in a time and place where present day optical techniques were being pioneered.

It’s clear to the experts here that Vermeer must have been working with lenses. The film contains an experiment intended to investigate his fabled use of a camera obscura, with telling results. Whilst his early paintings are barely recognisable as his, experimenting wildly with styles and themes, there is a clear point at which something changed and the lifelike work began to appear. These researches imply that it may have begun with his sudden inability to see the world – and his own work – with a precision which no artist had ever done before.

This fascination with detail makes more sense when, close as we are, we get to appreciate just how tiny some of his most famous works are. If you have never seen them in person, you may find this quite startling, as reproductions are frequently larger. They are, it is noted, too small to have fetched him much money at the time, despite their brilliance, so he had to be making all that effort for another reason. What it was is left for viewers to wonder about at their leisure, but one might think, first of all, how exciting it must have been to discover that it was possible to recreate the world in this way.

In the process of restoring paintings for the exhibition, a discovery is made: tiny flecks of green paint in the background of Girl With A Pearl Earring. It’s a clue which ultimately reveals the painting to be quite different, and more complex, from what we are used to seeing. The camera pans across merchandise in the gift shop which is now out of date. Elsewhere, there is a lot of talk about Vermeer’s use of green earth to depict shadows on skin, with curiosity expressed as to where he came up with such an odd idea. I do not generally interject myself into my reviews, but here I must note that when I look at my own skin that underlying shade is obvious, and given common skin tones in Delft, it’s hardly a surprise that he would have observed such a thing. Besides, cosmeticians had, by then, already been using it for at least two thousand years.

Did Vermeer have skin like that himself? We see him in only one picture, from behind. There is speculation about another, and it’s a curious thing to imagine how he might have appeared – all those exquisit paintings of others and never a selfie. We do learn more about his behaviour, however, with studies of the canvas on which he worked telling us something about how he shopped, and helping to put his paintings in order. This points up oddities in the progression of his work. Every critic is awed by The Lacemakers, yet Young Woman Seated At A Virginal, which we now know to have been made around the same time, seems significantly cruder. Was this a result of failing health? Did he make use of an assistant? Could he have been supplementing his income by teaching his craft?

The biggest mystery addressed in the film is one with which viewers may already be familiar, as it made headlines around the world: is Girl With A Flute actually a Vermeer at all? Raes puts us in the room during the first heated discussions about this and lets the researchers who feel they have confirmed that it is not make their pitch. It’s a fascinating moment in the study of art history and not everyone is persuaded by the film’s end – yet by highlighting the difficulty of substantiating perceptions about the past, it serves as a reminder of just how valuable Vermeer’s paintings are – snapshots of ordinary life which enable us to look back actoss the centuries and note how similar we are to people who lived then, inviting us to understand that past not as something vanished but as part of who we are today. Close To Vermeer brings this into sharp perspective.

Director: Suzanne Raes

Starring: Pieter Roelofs, Jonathan Janson, Gregor JM Weber

Runtime: 79 minutes

Country: Netherlands

Search database:

• News & Features

Close to Vermeer (2023)

watch later

not interested / hide

Play Trailer

subscription

Read our dedicated guide on how to watch Close to Vermeer (2023)

40 Best Documentary Movies to Come Out in 2023

6 Best Services to Get an ESPN Free Trial

3 Best Services to Get a Fox Sports 1 (FS1) Free Trial

How To Cancel Your YouTube TV Subscription in 2024

Amazon Prime Video Review 2024

Emil Hofileña

Turns out that watching paint dry is actually really emotionally satisfying.

What it's about

Less a documentary on Johannes Vermeer himself and more about the art scholar's mission to study ideas of beauty and aesthetics from various perspectives, this documentary successfully takes an admittedly very esoteric subject and makes it compelling. Director Suzanne Raes easily gets to the essence of the complex questions and insights that these Vermeer experts have, but without dumbing them down or reducing them into generic academic talking points. In fact, the thing that really comes through in the film's discussions is the emotion that these people feel in figuring out how Vermeer managed to paint such stunning images, and what the man was drawn to in human beings. It's oddly persuasive; whether or not you're a fan of 17th-century artists, watching Close to Vermeer feels like finally solving a puzzle.

What stands out

Raes' best technique in her director's bag is when she gives us the time and the quiet to observe some of Vermeer's works on our own. After hearing some of the experts discuss specific pieces, Raes gives us our turn to interpret things for ourselves, but without holding our hand. It's these serene moments, where she allows us to be alone in a room with Vermeer (something that most of us are likely never going to be able to do in our lifetimes), that show how much Raes respects her audience and how strongly she believes that great art can truly speak for itself, whether or not we feel we have the knowledge to "get" it.

Add a comment

More like this in, instructive.

Falling in Love Like in Movies (2023)

A contemplative Indonesian romance film that rewrites and re-examines the genre’s conventions

Blind Date Book Club (2024)

A perfectly saccharine bookstore romance for light viewing

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

A star-studded and riveting legal drama with a blockbuster feel.

Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal (2024)

WWE’s best effort to pay tribute to Windham “Bray Wyatt” Rotunda

River (2023)

A delightful and ultimately life-affirming Japanese time loop comedy clearly made with love

System Crasher (2019)

A tale of trauma and one of the most talked about movies on Netflix in 2020.

Leave the World Behind (2023)

Shyamalan meets Black Mirror in this hugely entertaining, visually inventive apocalyptic thriller with a killer ending

Mister Organ (2022)

A filmmaker chases — and then struggles to escape — a shady figure in this fascinating and disturbing documentary

Hail Satan? (2019)

Forget everything you think you know about the Satanic Temple

I Lost My Body (2019)

The Oscar-nominated unconventional animation

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

© 2024 agoodmovietowatch, all rights reserved.

Close to Vermeer

Where to Watch

Gregor J.M. Weber (Self) Pieter Roelofs (Self) Jonathan Janson Betsy Wieseman (Self) Anna Krekeler (Self) Abbie Vandivere (Self)

Suzanne Raes

Much has been written, but little is known about Johannes Vermeer, painter of iconic paintings and crowd pleasers such as The Milkmaid and Girl with a Pearl Earring. His small oeuvre is almost everything he left behind. Dicht bij Vermeer (Close to Vermeer) follows Gregor Weber, a globally renowned Vermeer expert and flamboyant curator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In the year before he retires, he works on his big dream: the largest Vermeer exhibition ever. Together with Weber, a number of Vermeer enthusiasts and experts go in search of what truly makes a Vermeer a Vermeer. Through new discoveries and by dissecting the work layer by layer, this film brings us closer to the painter to understand the decisions he made and the steps in his oeuvre.

Recommendations

Advertisement

Canada's Documentary Magazine

Close to Vermeer Review: The Question of Authorship

When is a Vermeer painting really a Vermeer?

Close to Vermeer (Netherlands, 78 min.) Dir. Suzanne Raes

How can an art fan be sure that Johannes Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring ? Sure, the movie with Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth supports the idea. But only an expert with a fine attention to detail and keen intuition can distinguish one artist’s use of light, colour, texture, and shading from another’s. Close to Vermeer unpacks the ins and outs of authorship by putting the late Dutch painter under the microscope. As the curators of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum seek to mount the world’s largest collection of Vermeer paintings of a 2023 show, they thoroughly analyse a number of disputed works. Curators Gregor Weber and Pieter Roelofs and conservators Abbie Vandivere and Anna Krekeler, along with experts like Essential Vermeer curator Jonathan Janson, dive into the question of what makes a Vermeer a Vermeer as they prepare to celebrate the artist on an unprecedented scale.

Anyone who loves to spend time in a gallery simply must see this documentary. Close to Vermeer gives audiences an insider’s view of the scope of work entailed with curating a major exhibition. The film begins with Weber and Roelofs seated at a table examining a rogue’s gallery of postcards. They’re looking at all the known Vermeer paintings available (one was stolen) and discerning the prized pieces for their show. What’s interesting about this exhibit is that the curators aren’t simply chasing masterpieces. Rather, they aim to build a narrative about an artist’s journey. They’re as keen to show the minor works as they are the major ones. By looking closely at Vermeer’s body of work, the documentary shows the artist’s growth and, to the frank dismay of some curators, his decline. But the curated corpus humanizes the artist while illustrating his unique talent.

Curators Become Detectives

Close to Vermeer largely follows Weber as he visits museums to inquire about borrowing their Vermeers. Some curators love the idea of helping bring all the Vermeers together. Others crush Weber’s dreams. A Vermeer can be a “destination piece” that attracts patrons to a gallery, while other paintings were acquired with the stipulation that they never leave. With each query, the film observes the process through which curators, conservators, and historians determine authorship. Very little is known about Vermeer’s biography, so the experts shape a narrative by understanding Vermeer’s techniques and by speculating about his motivations.

Painting by painting, the art aficionados pry the art from its frame and scan the work for forensic analysis. Cutting edge technology allows them to see layers of paint, but also stages of progress. They can tell when Vermeer touched something up, or if a contested element was added later, either by Vermeer or by somebody else. Or they can tell if two pieces were painted on canvas from the same source. This process lets the curators make new discoveries about works that are nearly 400 years old. For example, they find a breakthrough with Girl with a Pearl Earring by observing that the background is really green, not black. Upon closer inspection, they can discover folds in the background—the subject was therefore seated in front of a dark green drape. Vermeer’s sense of detail, and his ability to capture light and texture, lend signatures to his work.

If Not Vermeer, Who?

At the same time, Close to Vermeer captures some hot debates. The curators struggle, for example, with Young Woman Seated at the Virginals . The work, painted circa 1670, is a prized piece for collector Thomas Kaplan. He proudly agrees to loan his Vermeer to the exhibit and has grand stories about its acquisition. However, Weber’s face indicates the collector may have been snookered. As he joins experts in studying the painting, they find it awfully derivative of Vermeer’s work. It has all the makings of a Vermeer in terms of subject, framing, and composition. However, the details don’t tell a story and the technique is comparably sloppy. The choice is attribute the painting to someone else or to agree that Vermeer didn’t always produce masterpieces.

Similarly, Close to Vermeer observes the subjectivity entailed in these high stakes conclusions. The film finds great drama when the Dutch experts clash with the American curators over Girl with a Flute . The Americans notice key elements, like shoddy use of green earth in the skin tones, that suggest someone in Vermeer’s circle—an apprentice, perhaps—was attempting his technique. Weber and Janson, meanwhile, see the green earth as evidence of Vermeer’s hand. They know that nobody else at the time used this material to capture skin tones. The debates become so fraught that, at one point, the cameras aren’t permitted to see or hear what happens behind closed doors. But the drama proves fascinating: can art lovers admit that even the greatest artists are capable of lesser art?

The Art of It All

No matter which side audiences find themselves in the authorship debate, they should have a grand time watching experts dive into their passions. It’s fun to see art lovers nerd out over Easter eggs, paint hues, and canvas edges. Moreover, at a time when most documentaries concern themselves with the business of art, rather than, well, the artistry of art, director Suzanne Raes’ approach shows audiences why some painters are considered masters. People rarely mention prices in this documentary.

Much like Brian D. Johnson’s The Colour of Ink , the film really gets close to the materials. Macro-level photography puts viewers alongside the experts in the authorship debate. Audiences can see the textures of Vermeer and the details of his work like never before. The film is like having the closest view possible in a gallery. When Weber approaches paintings for a close up, alarms go off, but Raes’ camera gets so near to the canvas that one can practically smell it. You can’t do that in a gallery!

Close to Vermeer opens in Toronto at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on June 2.

• Close to Vermeer
• Johannes Vermeer
• Suzanne Raes
• The Colour of Ink

You might be interested in

Apolonia, Apolonia Review: Two Women, Two Artists, One Shared Portrait

A Bullet Pulling Thread Review: Healing One Stitch at a Time

The Walk Review: A Larger-Than-Life Look at The Child Refugee Crisis

• Latest posts

Pat Mullen is the publisher of POV Magazine. He holds a Master’s in Film Studies from Carleton University where his research focused on adaptation and Canadian cinema. Pat has also contributed to outlets including The Canadian Encyclopedia, Paste, That Shelf, Sharp, Xtra, and Complex. He is the vice president of the Toronto Film Critics Association and an international voter for the Golden Globe Awards.

Food, Inc. 2 Review: More to Chew

• Hot Docs Reveals "Surprise Screenings" for this Year's Festival

Hot Docs Highlights: The Sundance Docs Coming to Toronto

Kevin macdonald on the highs and lows of john galliano.

Pride Guide: A Dozen Docs Spotlighting LGBTQ+ Stories

Representing Andrea Dworkin’s Controversial Voice on Screen

Latest from blog.

Food, Inc. 2 a sequel to the hit documentary, examines the food industry in the wake

Hot Docs Reveals “Surprise Screenings” for this Year’s Festival

Hot Docs announces The Bones and the Jennifer Lawrence-produced Bread & Roses as the Special Screenings

Sundance hits touching down at Hot Docs include Daughters, Never Look Away, Luther: Never Too Much,

Director Kevin Macdonald discusses his documentary High & Low: John Galliano and the rise, fall, and

Now Streaming: Arab Women Say What?! Continues the Conversation

Now streaming at NFB.ca, Arab Women Say What?! continues the conversation set by Nisreen Baker's 2017

Close to Vermeer

Cast & crew.

Pieter Roelofs

Betsy Wieseman

Abbie Vandivere

Suzanne Raes

Ilja Roomans

• DOCUMENTARY
• Average 7.9

Information

© 2023 Kino Lorber

Copyright © 2024 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

Internet Service Terms Apple TV & Privacy Cookie Policy Support

Search Reeling Reviews

Close to vermeer.

There are 37 known paintings by the artist Johannes Vermeer, although one, The Concert, was stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 and has never recovered and another, The Girl with a Flute, has been disputed.  As Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum curators Gregor Weber and Pieter Roelofs began their attempt to mount the largest Vermeer exhibit in an effort to tell new stories about the artist and his work, director Suzanne Raes followed them, painter and curator Jonathan Jannson and conservators Abbie Vandivere and Anna Krekeler as they got “Close to Vermeer.”

Laura's Review: B

Essential Vermeer opened in February 2023 and closed on June 4, its curators having successfully gathered 28 of the artist’s paintings in an exhibit unlikely to ever be repeated, at least in this lifetime.  Over 650,000 tickets were sold with demand so great the museum extended its hours to 11 p.m. on weekends.  For those who didn’t have the great fortune to attend in person, we have Raes’ insider look at just what the folks who mounted Essential Vermeer think makes a Vermeer a Vermeer.

The first to weigh in with some amount of wonder is Weber, who tells us that although da Vinci declared black was to be used for shadows, ‘somehow Vermeer knew that warm yellow light has cold blue shadows.’  Anna Krekeler studies the Rijksmuseum’s own ‘The Little Street’ under a microscope, marveling that what are so clearly bricks become dots of paint and how the whole painting would become uninteresting but for the red shutter Vermeer included in the right hand corner.  Abbie Vandivere, her braids dyed ‘Vermeer blue,’ is in awe at being able to view ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ ‘undressed,’ i.e., out of its frame.  The paintings are subjected to a type of x-raying that allows experts to see when things were added, like the birdcage in ‘Girl Interrupted in Her Music,’ or, as in the case of ‘Pearl Earring,’ discover lines that reveal her background was a curtain.

We’re also made privy to the diplomacy, bartering and détente necessary to pull this off.  Raes informs us that fully a third of Vermeer’s work resides in the U.S. and we follow Weber and Roelofs to The Frick Collection and The Met in New York as well as the National Gallery in D.C.  A painting will be loaned for a reciprocal loan in the future.  There is a bit of a kerfluffle after the National Gallery declares ‘The Girl with a Flute’ to not be Vermeer, stating some convincing arguments, one involving the way he used ‘green earth’ in his skin tones, only for Roelofs to declare otherwise later. 

And despite these experts obvious love for the artist (Weber chokes up several times), there is a lot of criticism for his ‘A Young Woman Sitting at a Virginal,’ a late painting no one disputes is his work, but which is a near copy of ‘A Lady Playing a Guitar’ with several aspects borrowed from others.  It is deemed ‘unoriginal.’  It is also the only privately held Vermeer.

There is little known about Vermeer, although we can see his back in ‘The Art of Painting,’ know he was married and had fourteen children, lived next door to Jesuits and died at the age of 45.  His use of the camera obscura, something covered extensively in the 2014 documentary “Tim’s Vermeer,” is discussed, a drawing of an old woman done by a neighbor all but certain to have been traced using the device.  The experts here seem to dismiss the idea that Vermeer himself did this, although it is unclear why.

Raes doesn’t identify every painting as it comes into discussion, although there is a titled slide show of all the works gathered at the end of her film.  We learn why some paintings were not included, but not all, just as we’re given pieces of the story the exhibit is going to tell without being given a full overview.   “Close to Vermeer” may leave us with some questions, but it also gives us new facets of the artist’s work to consider while inviting us inside the curation of a formidable exhibit.

Robin's Review: C+

Gregor Weber, the well-known curator of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, is near retirement and sets in motion his most ambitious dream – put together the world’s largest exhibit of the works of Johannes Vermeer in “Close to Vermeer.”

After having the chance to see some of the world’s great artworks over these past decades, I found that I like Vermeer's wonderful works the most. As with any good documentary, we are educated and entertained in this analysis of the artist far too limited catalog of work – only 37 in total.

What starts out as a document on Weber’s effort to gather as many works as possible for the ultimate Vermeer exhibit – and it does that – shifts gears as it brings into question the authenticity of some of the collected works. This turns into a pro and con discussion with the debate on what “makes a Vermeer a Vermeer.”

At just a 79 minute run time, I found that I consider it too long – it packs too much information into what could have been a solid documentary about the trials and tribulations of putting together such an exciting exhibit. At the same time, though, I found it too short – it fails to fully explore the different paths it tries to take. I love all the Vermeer paintings, though.

Kino Lorber opened "Close to Vermeer" in select theaters on 5/26/23.  Click here for play dates.

REELING IS A PROUD MEMBER OF…

Laura and Robin's reviews are also featured on Rotten Tomatoes , the Movie Review Query Engine , and the IMDB .

• Reeling’s Top 10 Lists
• All Reviews
• Past Episodes
• Broadcast Schedule

Reeling: The Movie Review Show

has been produced by Robin and Laura Clifford at the Malden, Massachusetts cable access television station, MATV, since March 16, 1991.

• Reviews RSS

Close to Vermeer

2023, nr, 78 min. directed by suzanne raes., reviewed by richard whittaker , fri., july 14, 2023.

A great exhibition, as art historian Gregor Weber contends, should change your view of the world. As outgoing head of the Department of Fine Arts at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, earlier this year he had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to curate the largest ever exhibition of the works of Johannes Vermeer.

If the name seems familiar cinematically, it's possibly because Scarlett Johansson starred in the 2004 adaptation of Tracy Chevalier's highly specious novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring , a fictionalized account of the painting of one of Vermeer's most famous pictures. Chevalier was given the space to fill in the gaps of Vermeer's life because so little is known about him, little beyond the barest of details. Born in 1632, he lived and worked in the city of Delft as an art dealer, fathered 15 children, painted a few dozen pictures – small pieces, mostly painted in the same room in his house – and died at age 43. He is now recognized as a revolutionary figure in Baroque art: However, in his lifetime he was a minor artist, barely known outside of his hometown and completely overshadowed in the Dutch Golden Age by his peers, Rubens and Rembrandt.

And the biggest enigma: How many paintings did Vermeer actually paint? That's the challenge facing Weber and exhibition curator Peter Roelofs as they attempt to put together the definitive exhibition of his works. It's also the intriguing narrative of Close to Vermeer , Suzanne Raes' wander through the gallery as the team attempts to define what a Vermeer is.

The quest is surprisingly tense (especially for anyone who has undertaken any archival work) every time a picture is removed from its frame for restoration or scanning. The scanning is important: This is an unprecedented opportunity to pull together every confirmed Vermeer – or at least those about which there is sufficient academic consensus – and look at them, brushstroke by brushstroke, pigment by pigment, layer by layer, stripping away restorations and later additions to analyze and speculate about the master's methodology.

That the revelations surprise even the obsessive Weber helps make Close to Vermeer so fascinating, especially as he works to prove his theory about Vermeer as an innovator of optics, explaining his incredible comprehension of how shadows work at a level that far outstripped his contemporaries. At the same time, it triggers a complicated and sometimes awkward discussion of attribution: What if a supposed Vermeer is not a Vermeer, or was finished by another artist, or the subject of a bad restoration, or a copy, or an imitation, or maybe the flaws are Vermeer on a bad day? Such discussions bring the single-minded Weber clear pain, and so it's fortunate that Raes can alleviate the stress, at least a little, with the mechanics of assembling an exhibition, as Weber and Roelofs overcome seemingly impossible hurdles of curation and the team at home fusses over details of merchandising and barriers. And while Raes may not be able to replicate the experience of the show for the cinematic audience, she undoubtedly leaves them with a new perspective on the curator's calling, and the work of Vermeer himself.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

Support the Chronicle  

Jessi Cape, April 12, 2024

Richard Whittaker, April 12, 2024

April 19, 2024

Close to Vermeer , Suzanne Raes

Film Review: “Close to Vermeer” – Out of This World

By Ed Symkus

Johannes Vermeer as a person and a painter remains a mystery, but this documentary expertly probes the brilliance of his art.

Close to Vermeer , written and directed by Suzanne Raes. It screens at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on July 21 at 7:30 p.m.

Abbie Vandivere, paintings conservator at the Mauritshuis, and Girl with a Pearl Earring in a scene from Close to Vermeer.

Allow me to be completely transparent about my relationship with the works of the 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. They move me, make my jaw drop. Upon seeing them in person, their emotional impact has, on a couple of occasions, brought me to the edge of swooning.

I’d never heard of Vermeer when, close to a half-century ago, I went, for the first time, to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. And there, above a small table, on the right side of the Dutch Room, was the small (28-9/16” x 25-1/2”), exquisite The Concert , a painting I would make a beeline to during every recurring visit. I have no idea what fascinated me, but I could never get enough. A couple of decades later, after the painting had been stolen, I wasn’t just heartbroken. I felt violated.

Over the years, though, I’ve managed to check out a number of Vermeers in museums throughout the United States and Europe. So far I have been up close and personal with 18 of the (supposed) 37 that exist. The theft of The Concert left some scars, but I’m happy to report that, because of those other viewings, my soul has been soothed.

Forgive me; I ramble. This is supposed to be a film review. Initially learning that Close to Vermeer was a relatively brief (78-minute) documentary about the mounting of an expansive, much ballyhooed Vermeer retrospective at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, I must admit that I feared a dry, even pedantic, experience.

Unless, of course, the film focused more on examining the artworks themselves, than going on (and on) about how they could be best displayed (Where should we hang Girl with a Pearl Earring ? How far away should viewers be kept from The Geographer ?). The good news is that, though Close to Vermeer swings both ways, a great deal of time is commanded by cameras  tasked with lovingly lingering on the singular oil paintings, brimming with color, light, shadow, texture, and a bit of enigma. Who are these subjects? Why did Vermeer choose to place them in what often appears to be the same indoor setting over and over (except when he opted to create, atypically for him, an exterior scene)?

Yes, the film also deals with the challenges of putting this ambitious show together. It was curated by Gregor J.M. Weber, who admits he actually fainted when, as a schoolboy, he saw his first Vermeer. This will be his final exhibition before retirement, and his dream was to go out with the equivalent of a curatorial bang. He would assemble the largest Vermeer collection ever to be seen. Weber explains that “a good exhibition should sweep you away,” asserting that “I want people to get inside Vermeer’s head.”

We meet the researcher Anna Krekeler, who, gazing under a high-powered microscope at The Little Street , gushes that the red shutter in the detailed painting is “possibly the most beautiful shutter in the history of art.” While she and Weber discuss the fact that so little is known about Vermeer, including what he looked like, he mentions, “Rembrandt has about 80 self-portraits, and we just have [Vermeer’s] back, as the camera stares at that back in The Painter .

Predictably, the film is loaded with unabashed Vermeer geeks. Jonathan Janson, himself a painter, recalls seeing his first when he was 18, thinking, “What is this mysterious object? It looks like it came from Mars, landed, and wanted to say something to me.” As he speaks, the camera lovingly ogles Woman Holding a Balance .

Johannes Vermeer’s The Concert . Photo: Wiki Common

That “dryness” I was concerned with? The film never goes there. I found it fascinating to be a fly on the wall as the curator made his way to museums around the world, hoping to convince the powers-that-be to lend their Vermeers to be in his show. Weber met up with the word “no” more often than he expected. Real drama materializes when it appears that one of the paintings he was going after comes with questions about its attribution attached. Did Vermeer really paint it? Was it done by an assistant? By one of his daughters?

Modern technology is able to settle a number of quandaries, and misinterpretations, about Vermeer’s paintings. Still, Close to Vermeer  only gets so close: as the finished exhibit was about to open to the public (it ran, completely sold out, from February to June of this year), Vermeer and his art still remained, as Janson suggests, otherworldly.

Alas, The Concert is nowhere to be seen in the film. It’s not even mentioned by name. The closest we get to hearing about the pilfered masterpiece is when art dealer Otto Naumann talks about the ever-growing value of the paintings in the collectors’ market. “There are no Vermeers left,” he says, ruefully. “Except the one that was stolen.”

Ed Symkus is a Boston native and Emerson College graduate. Among his accomplishments: He went to Woodstock, interviewed Edward Gorey, Ray Bradbury, Ted Nugent, and Kathryn Bigelow, and has visited the Outer Hebrides, the Lofoten Islands, Anglesey, Mykonos, the Azores, Catalina, Kangaroo Island, and the Isle of Capri with his wife Lisa.

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Recent posts, children’s book reviews: gardens galore, weekly feature: poetry at the arts fuse, album review: cindy lee’s “diamond jubilee” — a hidden jewel, book review: “witness: an insider’s narrative of the carceral state” — a voice worth heeding, book review: “hollywood’s imperial wars” — darkness visible.

Movie Avante

A Movie Blog for the Latest Movie Reviews, Trailers, and More

Close to Vermeer Review

• October 12, 2023

There’s a moment in Suzanne Raes’s “Close to Vermeer,” a documentary about the curation of a Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where Abbie Vandivere, a conservator and researcher at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Netherlands, describes the first time she held Vermeer’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring in her hands. Her exhilaration and awe is palpable. Even the memory makes her eyes shine. To actually hold the physical object! “Close to Vermeer” is a gentle, thoughtful documentary, populated by knowledgeable individuals like Vandivere, experts at the top of their fields who have maintained their passion and love for the subject.

The documentary covers a lot of ground. It shows the challenges of curating a show of this magnitude (Vermeer’s very small body of work—just 34 paintings—is scattered over the globe). It also extensively gets into the various controversies surrounding “authorship,” particularly with a couple of contested paintings. Both sides make their case as to why this or that work is or is not a Vermeer. These controversies sometimes make international headlines, quite a development for a painter who spent the two centuries after his death in almost total obscurity.

The main figure in “Close to Vermeer,” besides the artist himself, is George Weber, curator of the Vermeer exhibition, feeling the pressure to add new scholarship to accompany the show. It’s not enough to just put the paintings on the walls. He wants to deepen understanding, and he also wants to maybe settle the debate on the contested Vermeers once and for all.

Weber describes the first moment he ever saw a Vermeer as a teenager: “I actually fainted.” Weber is a very controlled and elegant man, but emotion keeps coming up in him. He feels passionately about the subject. His comments are sprinkled with gems like: “[Vermeer] seems to know that warm yellow light has cold blue shadows.” A comment like this helps me to see what he sees. The film is filled with almost microscopic shots of Vermeer’s work, the tiny cracks in the paint, the shadowy brush strokes, zooming in on the details. Pieter Roelofs, Weber’s co-curator, travels to museums worldwide to negotiate lending out “their” Vermeers for the exhibition. It’s a fascinating inside glimpse of backroom dealings at a very high level.

Along with these practical concerns, there are “guides” who help place Johannes Vermeer in a larger context. People like Abbie Vandivere and Jonathan Janson, a painter and Vermeer expert. He is the one who points out the creases in the yellow shawl of one of the contested paintings. He thinks they look crude, not as detailed as they should be. He has opinions. Weber visits him to discuss these issues. They spend time discussing colors, shadows, brush strokes, and the mysteries still surrounding Vermeer, his time, his life, and his work.

We know a lot more about Rembrandt, Vermeer’s contemporary, than we do about Vermeer. Rembrandt was prolific and versatile; his work was clearly influenced by Italian masters—all those huge shadowy portraits—and he almost obsessively put himself into paintings, the Dutch Golden Age verge of a selfie. Rembrandt experienced much success in his life.

Vermeer, on the other hand, had modest success and was not prolific at all. His paintings are all quite small in size and feature the same rooms, exquisitely rendered in tiny detail. In each, you see the same light sources, the same utensils, and maybe even the same people. He clearly painted people he knew intimately, and his primary subjects were women. There is no distance in approach from his subjects, no idealization or overt flattery. They are seen in homey settings, making lace, playing the virginal, sipping wine offered by a suitor. These are not “court” paintings. The experts here are all very good teachers.

There’s something soothing about “Close to Vermeer.” I’m the daughter of a rare book collector, a man who spent his free time tracking down books (mostly by Irish authors, primarily Francis Stuart). He’d show us the copyright page of his latest acquisition, and explain why it was relevant. He’d tell us stories about the publication, he’d gently turn the pages, treating the book with respect. This was the air I breathed as a child. And so there’s something soothing about listening to people sharing their knowledge, helping us understand why something is rare or special, unique or valuable.

There’s a moment in Suzanne Raes’s “Close to Vermeer,” a documentary about the curation of a Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where Abbie Vandivere, a conservator and researcher at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Netherlands, describes the first time she held Vermeer’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring in her hands. Her exhilaration…

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Recent Post

• 【新海誠監督ロングインタビュー（３）完】　「向いていない」と悩んだ時期もあった　アニメーションを作り続ける理由とは？　【映画「すずめの戸締まり」】
• The Super Mario Bros Movie
• Afire Movie Updates
• Four Quartets Movie
• Checkout Paint Movie
• Action Movies
• Recent Movies
• Science Fiction

Newesletter

Movie Introol

Get daily updates on films

Close To Vermeer Review

There’s a moment in Suzanne Raes’s “Close to Vermeer,” a documentary about the curation of a Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where Abbie Vandivere, a conservator and researcher at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Netherlands, describes the first time she held Vermeer’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring in her hands. Her exhilaration and awe is palpable. Even the memory makes her eyes shine. To actually hold the body object! “Close to Vermeer” is a gentle, thoughtful documentary, populated by knowledgeable individuals like Vandivere, experts at the top of their fields who have maintained their passion and love for the subject.

The documentary covers a lot of ground. It shows the challenges of curating a show of this magnitude (Vermeer’s very small body of work—just 34 paintings—is scattered over the globe). It also extensively gets into the various controversies surrounding “authorship,” particularly with a couple of contested paintings. Both sides make their matter as to why this or that work is or is not a Vermeer. These controversies sometimes make international headlines, quite a development for a painter who spent the two centuries after his passed away in almost total obscurity.

The main figure in “Close to Vermeer,” besides the artist himself, is George Weber, curator of the Vermeer exhibition, feeling the pressure to add new scholarship to accompany the show. It’s not enough to just put the paintings on the walls. He wants to deepen understanding, and he also wants to maybe settle the debate on the contested Vermeers once and for all.

Weber describes the first moment he ever saw a Vermeer as a teenager: “I actually fainted.” Weber is a very controlled and elegant man, but emotion keeps coming up in him. He feels passionately about the subject. His comments are sprinkled with gems like: “[Vermeer] seems to know that warm yellow light has cold sapphire shadows.” A comment like this helps me to see what he sees. The film is filled with almost microscopic shots of Vermeer’s work, the tiny cracks in the paint, the shadowy brush strokes, zooming in on the details. Pieter Roelofs, Weber’s co-curator, travels to museums worldwide to negotiate lending out “their” Vermeers for the exhibition. It’s a fascinating inside glimpse of backroom dealings at a very high level.

Along with these practical concerns, there are “guides” who help place Johannes Vermeer in a larger context. People like Abbie Vandivere and Jonathan Janson, a painter and Vermeer expert. He is the one who points out the creases in the yellow shawl of one of the contested paintings. He thinks they look crude, not as detailed as they should be. He has opinions. Weber visits him to discuss these issues. They spend time discussing colors, shadows, brush strokes, and the mysteries still surrounding Vermeer, his time, his life, and his work.

We know a lot more about Rembrandt, Vermeer’s contemporary, than we do about Vermeer. Rembrandt was prolific and versatile; his work was clearly influenced by Italian masters—all those huge shadowy portraits—and he almost passion put himself into paintings, the Dutch Golden Age verge of a selfie. Rembrandt experienced much success in his life.

Vermeer, on the other hand, had modest success and was not prolific at all. His paintings are all quite small in size and feature the same rooms, exquisitely rendered in tiny detail. In each, you see the same light sources, the same utensils, and maybe even the same people. He clearly painted people he knew devotedly, and his primary subjects were women. There is no distance in approach from his subjects, no idealization or overt flattery. They are seen in homey settings, making lace, playing the virginal, sipping plonk offered by a suitor. These are not “court” paintings. The experts here are all very good teachers.

There’s something soothing about “Close to Vermeer.” I’m the daughter of a rare book collector, a man who spent his free time tracking down books (mostly by Irish authors, primarily Francis Stuart). He’d show us the copyright page of his recent acquisition, and explain why it was relevant. He’d tell us stories about the publication, he’d gently turn the pages, treating the book with respect. This was the air I breathed as a child. And so there’s something soothing about listening to people sharing their knowledge, helping us understand why something is rare or special, unique or valuable.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Related Post

Blood And Gold Movie Blood And Gold Movie

The new WWII action-thriller “Blood & Gold” exists for one reason and one reason only—to present the grisly spectacle of hordes of Nazis being shot, stabbed, crushed, poisoned, burned, and

BitAMG 3.6 Ai Review BitAMG 3.6 Ai Review

Conceptually ambitious, lyrically dazzling, and famously opaque, T.S. Eliot’s poem Four Quartets challenges us from the very beginning with quotes from Heraclitus – in Greek. Ralph Fiennes recited the entire

The Wrath of Becky Movie The Wrath of Becky Movie

What’s the point of “The Wrath of Becky,” a toothless revenge fantasy that pits a teenage girl against a cabin full of Neo-Nazis? “The Wrath of Becky” tiptoes after “Becky,”

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Close to Vermeer

• Much has been written, but little is known about Johannes Vermeer, painter of iconic paintings and crowd pleasers such as The Milkmaid and Girl with a Pearl Earring. His small oeuvre is almost everything he left behind. Dicht bij Vermeer (Close to Vermeer) follows Gregor Weber, a globally renowned Vermeer expert and flamboyant curator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In the year before he retires, he works on his big dream: the largest Vermeer exhibition ever. Together with Weber, a number of Vermeer enthusiasts and experts go in search of what truly makes a Vermeer a Vermeer. Through new discoveries and by dissecting the work layer by layer, this film brings us closer to the painter to understand the decisions he made and the steps in his oeuvre.
• Much has been written, but little is known about Johannes Vermeer, painter of iconic paintings and crowd pleasers such as The Milkmaid and Girl with a Pearl Earring. His small oeuvre is almost everything he left behind. Close to Vermeer follows Gregor Weber, a globally renowned Vermeer expert and flamboyant curator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In the year before he retires, he works on his big dream: the largest Vermeer exhibition ever. Together with Weber, a number of Vermeer enthusiasts and experts go in search of what truly makes a Vermeer a Vermeer. Through new discoveries and by dissecting the work layer by layer, this film brings us closer to the painter to understand the decisions he made and the steps in his oeuvre.

It looks like we don't have any synopsis for this title yet. Be the first to contribute.

Contribute to this page

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More from this title

More to explore.

Recently viewed

• Everything Advanced Search

Close to Vermeer

Find similar titles by category

‘Tim’s Vermeer’: Duplicating a Masterwork

Friends Read Free

PG-13 | 1h 20m | Documentary, Art History | 2014

It’s not often when art, science, and sleight-of-hand cross paths in a documentary film, and when you find out the premise behind “Tim’s Vermeer,” your first reaction might be a gaping yawn. But once the particulars and participants are introduced, you’ll do an about face and say, “Wow, that’s way too cool.”

The Hockney-Falco Thesis

No strangers themselves to the art of making things appear as they are not, the magic team of Penn Jillette and a man that goes by the mononym Teller decided to chronicle Mr. Jenison’s five-year quest to employ some of the artists’ instruments that were available at the time to Vermeer and his contemporaries. They documented how Mr. Jenison created a copy of “The Music Lesson,” aka “A Lady at the Virginals With a Gentleman,” which currently hangs in Buckingham Palace.

An Expensive Experiment

For a great deal of the second half of the film, Mr. Jenison and the audience literally “watch paint dry,” but don’t get the idea that it is in any way dull or tedious. If you’ve ever witnessed a Penn & Teller show, you’re already keenly aware that the set-ups to their tricks can often be thunderously mundane and simple, which of course makes the final reveal all that more astonishing.

Don’t Pass Judgment

“Tim’s Vermeer” is “The Da Vinci Code” minus all of the abject religious hyperbole and superfluous flummery, but with more authentic and organic drama. It’s a movie for people who like to get into the heads of complicated, creative people, and figure out what makes them tick. In their own very different ways, Vermeer and Mr. Jenison are two guys cut from the same artistic and creative cloth, albeit four centuries apart.

‘Civil War’: Alex Garland’s Searing Warning Flare

‘Gangs of New York’: Scorsese’s Non-Mob Period Epic

‘Coup de Chance’: Love and Consequences in France

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Close Your Eyes review – melancholy magic as Víctor Erice addresses his own enigmatic legacy

The Spanish director of 1973’s The Spirit of the Beehive returns with only his fourth feature, a beguiling if overlong tale of a missing movie actor

A new film by the veteran Spanish director Víctor Erice is cause for celebration, particularly since his latest, Close Your Eyes , is only his fourth feature since his debut, 1973’s exquisite The Spirit of the Beehive . And it’s likely that this picture, about the unexplained disappearance of a movie actor mid-shoot, and a film director who ran out of stories to tell, is, in part, an attempt to address his own enigmatic legacy.

A rumpled, regretful Manolo Solo plays director Miguel Garay, drawn from his self-imposed exile to participate in a TV investigation into the vanishing actor, his friend Julio Arenas (José Coronado), star of his unfinished second (and final) film. It’s a beguiling drama that contrasts the mirage-like quality of hopes against the more tangible solidity of regrets. But while there’s a melancholy magic to it all, the spell is stretched rather thinly over the long running time.

after newsletter promotion

• Drama films
• The Observer
• World cinema

Comments (…)

Most viewed.