Imane Rashidi
Delft (Netherlands), 14 Feb. Delft is a small town that retains the magic of the authentic Dutch landscape: bathed by canals where the light reflects the shade of the trees; the church and square define its old town, the geometric buildings fit together, and cyclists and pedestrians quietly wind their way through its narrow lanes.
But life in Delft also unfolds between stories of events that marked the past and are remembered in the present of this country. One involves the ‘Father of the Nation’, Guillermo de Orange, who led the revolt against Felipe II’s Spain during the Eighty Years’ War, in which he won independence. From the Netherlands.
VERMEER’S DELFT
William of Orange marked the 16th century of Delft and the artist Vermeer (1632-1675) defined the 17th. The Prinsenhof Museum hosts until June 4 an exhibition focusing on the life of the painter, his network and his relationship with the city, sketching a picture of the artistic, intellectual and social climate of Delft in which the teacher, husband, father grew up ., son-in-law, businessman and neighbor.
No paintings by Vermeer are shown, most of which are today in the star exhibition of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, but a tour of Vermeer’s Delft is made through a hundred objects and archives related to his life: marriage certificates, inventories, wills, maps, typical household items, works of his contemporaries, typical ceramics and tapestries that the painter included in his paintings.
Vermeer was born in Delft into a Calvinist denomination and married Catharina Bolnes, a young Catholic with whom he had 11 children whom he baptized into his wife’s faith, and four others who died before being baptized. They frequently visited the building next door to the family home: a Jesuit mission with a hidden church in Delft for about 700 worshipers and a girls’ school where Vermeer’s daughters were baptized and educated.
The Prinsenhof focuses on figures from Vermeer’s immediate environment: his mother-in-law Maria Thins, fellow painter Leonaert Bramer, family notary Guillermo de Langue, collectors Maria de Knuijt and her husband Pieter van Ruijven, as well as the master baker Hendrick van Buyten, famous friend of Vermeer.
In addition to the exhibition, there are a series of events and activities on Vermeer in the city: the Old Church shows a series of photographs of his paintings reworked with models from the modern era; and the Vermeer Center in Delft reproduces 37 works by Vermeer and exhibits his chair, or a “camera obscura”, an optical device that shaped the painter’s particular photorealistic style, presented to the artist by the city’s Jesuit order .
Janelle Moerman, director of the Prinsenhof, admits that Vermeer is such a character that the museum can afford to “devote an entire exhibition to him without including a single one of his works”.
A MUSEUM THAT WAS BEFORE A MONASTERY
The Prinsenhof Museum was previously the Monastery of Santa Ágata, where Guillermo, born in 1533 in Dillenburg, Germany, moved in 1572. His disagreements with Felipe II led the King of Spain to put a bounty on his head, with several attempts failed assassinations. , says Dick Stammes, a Dutch guide and writer, during a tour of the historical secrets of Delft.
Everything changed in July 1584: William, nicknamed the Silent One, was on his way to his apartments after lunching with a mayor at Prinsenhof, when the Frenchman Balthasar Gerards shot him dead. The holes left by the two bullets remain intact, framed and without much protection, punched in the right wall of the staircase leading to the first floor of the museum.
The Dutch remember him as an intelligent, optimistic, eloquent prince with diplomatic gifts and a hero of the country. His last words, they say, were: “My God, my God, have mercy on me and on this poor people. William of Orange is buried in the New Church of Delft, in a tomb remodeled in 1614 by a sculptor from Amsterdam.
Gerard had spent the night before the murder at a nearby inn, which is now one of the busiest bakeries in Delft. Authorities imprisoned him in Het Steen, the city jail located in the 16th-century town hall, where he was tortured to death. The prison and its instruments of torture are now a tourist attraction.
Thus, this spring, the curious will be able to follow in the footsteps of the painter of “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” in Delft, meet William of Orange, photograph houses that seem to float on the canals, buy tulips and have a drink under the Delft light. EFE
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