Vermeer

Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found is a powerfully persuasive investigation into the intellectual and devotional world of Vermeer and his circle. Painting by painting, the riddle of the Sphinx is masterfully unravelled ... [Andrew Graham-Dixon] trawls the archives, lays out new evidence, links pictures never linked before, and teases new meaning from signs, symbols and sitters ... His reading of the paintings is revelatory -- Laura Freeman * The Times * Densely researched and highly original .... this book is an extraordinary portrait, flooded with light and colour, and a splendid unfolding of the pressure of meaning in everyday life; in other words, it emulates the special charge of Vermeer’s paintings -- Kathryn Murphy * Literary Review * Graham-Dixon puts forward a revolutionary theory... Right, or wrong, it is a theory that will change the way people look at that famous pearl earring, as well as at the painter’s other luminous portraits of lone women -- Vanessa Thorpe * Observer * With the skill of a good showman and the meticulousness of a scholar, [Graham-Dixon] .... sets out to illuminate the elusive life of Johannes Vermeer [and] to solve the riddle of the ''Girl'' herself .... In his quest to decode Vermeer's work, he draws together a piercingly analytical gaze and some well-informed speculation ... There are few better writers to take on the task -- Evgenia Siokos * Telegraph * Andrew Graham-Dixon seeks to return Vermeer to the scene of his art ... [he] create[s] rich sense of the worlds that Vermeer inhabited, focus[ing] in particular on the remarkable and seemingly unique relationship that Vermeer had with his patrons ... This book is well-grounded in scholarship and the writing is lively and adroit -- Joe Moshenska * Financial Times * Eloquently argued, engagingly written and ultimately rather moving -- Michael Hall * Country Life * Graham-Dixon is an experienced and diligent writer on art, and the book contains much absorbing factual information about Vermeer's mysterious life and his circle ... [it] attempts to return Vermeer to his own period -- Philip Hensher * Financial Times * This book is going to revolutionize the way we understand Vermeer. I read it slowly, feeling 'like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken'. How extraordinary to realise that things are not the way you have imagined all your life -- Peter Carey, twice winner of the Booker Prize This is a phenomenal book. The research and originality are staggering, suddenly creating a coherent character simply out of understanding the religious, social and political setting properly. I was utterly absorbed by it -- Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of <i>Lower than the Angels</i> Andrew Graham-Dixon places Vermeer's work in the context of its time. He convincingly makes clear that Vermeer's paintings are not simply atmospheric genre pieces, but coded works with a deeply religious meaning. In doing so, he presents a completely new vision of the artworks of Vermeer -- Professor Paul Abels, Leiden University