Private Air New York

www.privateairny.com Private Air | Winter 2021/2022 62 We can see here similarities between Vermeer's only outdoor works dated around 1660 and De Hooch's famous courtyard scenes, a genre that he is credited to creating. In his NGA canvas, we see base of brickwork on the bottom quarter of the canvas with a sloping staggered composition from upper right to lower left. Vermeer simulates this but on a different scale in his Little Street and uses his own doorkijkje views that echo PDH's London canvas. PDH has the element of movement in both pictures using the doorkijkje as a sort of time machine of coming and going while Vermeer uses them more as still ornamental vignettes. It is noteworthy however that JV's two outdoor views are the only pictures he made that can stand alone without the figures. It is possible he replicated also PDH's approach of creating the setting first in these works and adding figures later, unlike in the rest of his work. Both artists also created their own definitive Delft landscapes around this time. is is their "I am here" expose, their pride in being Delftians. View of Delft is considered one of the great paintings in the world and shows Vermeer's perfected technique of layering transparent and opaque dots and dashes of paint in an almost digital replication of light and form. He created an iconic image of the town; a sparkling sunlit Dutch Xanadu with passing dark clouds, now a metaphor of Delft's brief glory set between two wars. Its counterpart would be Pieter de Hooch's Woman in a Bleaching Field- probably his best outdoor cityscape view. is was exhibited spectacularly in De Hooch's Prisenhof exhibit in 2018. Which picture came first? Both pictures seem to play off of each other to some degree. Each shows local residents against the greatest hits of architecture in Delft as a backdrop. PDH zoomed in on the figures and their activities and managed to add a doorkjije while JV made a true cityscape, depicting the overall view with humans as antlike inhabitants in the scene. is was likely the 3rd time PDH painted this view in extant pictures. It also shows his traditional manipulation of landscape elements at will; moving the Nieuwe Kerk to just behind the Oude Kerk and his garden building to the left of the scene. ere is no actual point where all these edifices would line up in this same way. It appears that PDH painted the Nieuwe Kerk from life in the NGA/DC picture in 1657- 59 before any additions were added on the roof. is little sliver of plein aire painting with its sparkling color and realism may have impressed Vermeer. Courtyard Scenes National Gallery Washington Rothchild Collection Rijksmuseum Mauritshuis National Gallery, London ART

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