Vermeer's Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice [Hardcover]

Benjamin Binstock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 11, 2008

Johannes Vermeer, one of the greatest Dutch painters and for some the single greatest painter of all, produced a remarkably small corpus of work. In Vermeer's Family Secrets, Benjamin Binstock revolutionizes how we think about Vermeer's work and life. Vermeer, The Sphinx of Delft, is famously a mystery in art: despite the common claim that little is known of his biography, there is actually an abundance of fascinating information about Vermeer’s life that Binstock brings to bear on Vermeer’s art for the first time; he also offers new interpretations of several key documents pertaining to Vermeer that have been misunderstood. Lavishly illustrated with more than 180 black and white images and more than sixty color plates, the book also includes a remarkable color two-page spread that presents the entirety of Vermeer's oeuvre arranged in chronological order in 1/20 scale, demonstrating his gradual formal and conceptual development. No book on Vermeer has ever done this kind of visual comparison of his complete output. Like Poe's purloined letter, Vermeer's secrets are sometimes out in the open where everyone can see them. Benjamin Binstock shows us where to look. Piecing together evidence, the tools of art history, and his own intuitive skills, he gives us for the first time a history of Vermeer's work in light of Vermeer's life.

On almost every page of Vermeer's Family Secrets, there is a perception or an adjustment that rethinks what we know about Vermeer, his oeuvre, Dutch painting, and Western Art. Perhaps the most arresting revelation of Vermeer's Family Secrets is the final one: in response to inconsistencies in technique, materials, and artistic level, Binstock posits that several of the paintings accepted as canonical works by Vermeer, are in fact not by Vermeer at all but by his eldest daughter, Maria. How he argues this is one of the book's many pleasures.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Binstock resembles the detective Hercule Poirot in his methodical disentangling of the historical Vermeer from the accretion of too generous attributions and from the multiplicity of critical views, all directed to the uncovering of the artist whose autobiographical immersion in Delft, in home, and in family so fully constituted his art."—Richard Brilliant, Columbia University, author of Portraiture and My Laocoön: Alternative Claims in the Interpretation of Artworks

"Impassioned and fascinating, this novel account of the intimate links between Vermeer’s art and life bristles with intelligence. It offers not only sympathetic and imaginative readings of the paintings, but questions some basic assumptions in art history. Anyone interested in Vermeer will be struck by Binstock’s audacity, erudition, and deep love of art."—Martha Hollander, Hofstra University, author of An Entrance for the Eyes: Space and Meaning in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art

"Vermeer's Family Secrets is a highly original and searching account of one of the most elusive of painters.  Written with delightful verve, visual subtlety, and the courage to upend the platitudes and received wisdom of certain forms of art history, Binstock's book promises a revolution in the study of Vermeer, his circule, and his milieu."—Jonathan Gilmore, Yale University, author of The Life of a Style: Beginnings and Endings in the Narrative of Art History

"This book offers strong, informed opinions, bold claims, and precise chronology about one of art history’s favorite painters. While Binstock’s forceful arguments are sure to be controversial, they will inevitably provoke fresh scholarly discussion and rekindle close examination of Vermeer’s luminous pictures (and those of Carel Fabritius)."—Larry Silver, University of Pennsylvania, author of Hieronymus Bosch and Rembrandt’s Faith (co-authored with Shelley Perlove)

 

About the Author

Benjamin Binstock earned his Ph.D. in Art History at Columbia University, after study in Aix-en-Provence, Berkeley, Berlin, and Amsterdam. He was a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton and the American Academy of Berlin, and has taught at Columbia, New York University, CUNY, and presently at Cooper Union in downtown Manhattan.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 428 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (December 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415966647
• ISBN-13: 978-0415966641
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #944,902 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars DREK!, February 19, 2009

By 

Jon Boone (Oakland, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vermeer's Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice (Hardcover)

The "scholarship" advanced here is a tribute to an ultimately ineffable admixture of a few truths, many half truths, an avalanche of free associations, and whole oceans of utter fantasy. Words can't convey how silly this book is. There is no Occam's Razor at work here, as claimed. Rather, it's the Dragon in My Garage, complete with non sequiturs encased in a fallacy of composition vat. I wonder how Chuck Close feels about Binstock's thesis that his favorite portrait, Vermeer's Girl with a Red Hat, one of the most nuanced, sophisticated paintings in the world and among the most beautifully conceived and executed works in all of Vermeer's oeuvre, was actually made by a teenage girl (but it's quite possible the image represents one of Vermeer's daughters). How does Walter Liedtke feel about being quoted so badly out of context here, a quote only a few pages away from where Binstock asserts Vermeer never signed his famous Girl with a Pearl Earring, when in fact he did (with an IVMeer on the top left portion of the painting, visible on the original if one looks closely?

The pink highlight in the eye and the dot of blue between the lips of the Girl with a Flute that Binstock points out are reversed in the Girl with a Red Hat. But in the latter work they contribute to a sense of playful charm and plasticity; in Girl with a Flute, they're muddied, trapped in listless shadows, in need of further refinement. Surely this painting and the Girl with a Red Hat depict the same girl wearing exotic head gear and, even if the paintings were not meant as pendants, were conceived as reciprocal artistic exercises to showcase the skills of the painter. The former painting, although exhibiting passages of the master's touch--in the hat, the jacket, the outlines of the face, and the background tapestry (likely the same one shown in The Astronomer), has many awkward passages uncharacteristic of Vermeer's refinements, including the eyes and mouth, the hands, the flute, the bureau and the highlights in the brass knobs. One could imagine a teenaged girl who aspires to be a painter doing her thing in these areas of the painting. But only a charlatan would assert such a claim as fact. As Liedtke, and others, have concluded, Vermeer likely did not finish the painting. Subsequently, others attempted to do so in their own style and fashion, in the process rather substantially diminishing the painting's quality.

I could go on and on showing Binstock's mistakes and his Brobdingnagian leaps of faith, such as his assertion that the Sotheby's catalogue vouches that the Young Woman Seated at the Virginals is Vermeer's second daughter Elizabeth, when in fact it states "Any such identification is... speculative" (based upon little more than fictive ruminations from the novelist Tracy Chevalier and the British columnist Simon Jenkins). But this would be cruel, especially to Amazon readers, who should also be forewarned that the reproductions of Vermeer's paintings are of very poor quality in this book.

Binstock is no iconoclast. His effort here is a risible attempt at provoking controversy. But his loopy, sloppy methodology is embarrassing at many levels, including what appears to be an utter lack of editorial judgement on the part of his publisher. No serious scholar would recommend this cynical, contemptible book. Those seriously interested in knowing more about Vermeer should read the many other good books available, including Liedtke's most recent, Vermeer: The Complete Paintings; Anthony Bailey's excellent View of Delft; and of course Michael Montias' Vermeer and His Milieu. Better yet, see the original paintings themselves, and look with discernment. Vermeer is one of those artists whose paintings reward close and repetitive observation.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating, readable, informative, January 2, 2009

By 

R Brooks (Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vermeer's Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice (Hardcover)

I found this book fascinating, readable and very informative. Binstock has a genuinely fresh perspective on both a star of the art world and the process by which such stars are made. I admire his ability to step away from standard wisdom and reconsider, for instance in being the first Vermeer scholar to attempt a chronological ordering of his work. He tries to explain inconsistencies others have left unexplained; no one can be correct 100% of the time but at least he is trying, and I enjoy following his reasoning.

The portait of Vermeer's family life, including the revelation of the identity of the "unknown apprentice", is immensely interesting and lots of fun. On the whole I find Binstock's conclusions very plausible. They may upset some but his path to them is authentic and he does an excellent job backing them up.

I think this is a good book for anyone who wants to learn about Vermeer as well as enjoy his paintings. Through his eloquence, his passion for his subject and an remarkable knack for identifying, connecting and making sense of critical detail, Binstock encourages us to grasp the whole of the man and the artist as best we can. To him, Vermeer and other artists are fit objects of passion and vital interest for anyone who has been moved by the works. I am not an art historian but I felt the respect the author has for me as someone who (like him) loves Vermeer.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Over 180 black and white images and over sixty color plates accompany insights key to understanding Vermeer and his era, February 13, 2009

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vermeer's Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice (Hardcover)

Any library strong in art history will relish Vermeer's Family Secrets: it provides a powerful ion-depth collection offering new solutions to the riddle of the 'Sphinx of Delft', providing the first detailed examination of Vermeer's family member as models and offering re-interpretations of essential documents about Vermeer. Over 180 black and white images and over sixty color plates accompany insights key to understanding Vermeer and his era.