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www.privateairny.com Private Air | Winter 2021/2022 56 THE DYNAMIC DUO OF DELFT VERMEER AND DE HOOCH O ne of the great mysteries of the Dutch Golden Age is the relationship between Johannes Vermeer (1632- 1675) and Pieter de Hooch (1629-after 1686); ey elevated Dutch genre painting to one of the most beloved expressions of the Golden Age and of the history of art. ey are the Van Gogh/Gauguin, the Michelangelo/ Leonardo dynamic duo of Delft. ere is not a single written document that shows an interaction between them other than their signatures one name apart on the St. Luke's Guild of Art registry - but their pictures portray a unique dialogue and symbiosis in the history of Western art. Both painters grew together innovating genre painting each often using their own family as subject in controlled settings. is was the Age of the Seen, when the microscope and telescope showed us the stars and sperm, and the camera obscura bridged the gap between sight and painting with spectacular images projected on a flat surface. Painting now had a new purpose: recording and honoring this new life seen by our expanding senses. ey were both fascinated with light. Vermeer was interested in contemporary optics and the way images were created and projected thru lenses (via the camera obscura). He usually portrayed a beautiful journey of light traveling from the upper left side of the canvas to the lower right. De Hooch studied light's behavior on walls and materials, bouncing off surfaces at different angles and filtering thru glass and curtains. He painted dark rooms overlaid on light backgrounds with light filtering in through doors and windows, contre- jour (French: against the daylight). Vermeer painted his light effects with the mastery of soft and hard edges, of glazing and scumbling, of perfect shape and highlight while De Hooch's brushstroke traced the scene with a ART Gemaldegalerie Berlin Philadelphia Museum of Art

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