0:00:16 > 0:00:18Sunrise near Delft in Holland,
0:00:18 > 0:00:21homeland of Johannes Vermeer.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25He's one of the great painters of light,
0:00:25 > 0:00:29but until recently, he himself has been obscured,
0:00:30 > 0:00:32lost in the darkness of the past.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39I've come here to try to tell his story,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42to shed light on a life that's remained secret
0:00:42 > 0:00:44for more than 300 years.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49'It's a tale of love and death,
0:00:49 > 0:00:52'about a man who dreamed of a perfect world
0:00:52 > 0:00:54'but who ended up drowning.
0:00:54 > 0:00:59'It's a story about a real flood - the flood of 1672.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03'"The year of disaster" to the Dutch, when the dykes were broken
0:01:03 > 0:01:06'and the country was inundated.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13'But it's also a story about rising tides of debt,
0:01:13 > 0:01:18'about the market forces that can swamp and destroy a life.'
0:01:19 > 0:01:2317th-century Holland was a balancing act -
0:01:23 > 0:01:27a nation poised between land and sea, debit and credit.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31At the centre of it all, there was the windmill.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34Thousands of them covered the landscape,
0:01:34 > 0:01:37busily pumping water from one level to another,
0:01:37 > 0:01:41making Dutch life, and Dutch prosperity, possible.
0:01:41 > 0:01:47But what's this got to do with the secret life of one of Holland's greatest painters?
0:01:47 > 0:01:51Well, I think Vermeer's life was a balancing act too,
0:01:51 > 0:01:55a constant struggle to keep flood-water at bay,
0:01:55 > 0:02:00which, in the end, seems to have gone horribly wrong.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06He painted stillness, but died, they say, in a frenzy -
0:02:06 > 0:02:10- a fit of madness at the age of just 43.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14I wanted to find out why.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28Madness is the last thing associated with Vermeer's work,
0:02:28 > 0:02:33but I'm interested in the passions beneath the calm waters of his art.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39'So I went to Delft, the city he lived and worked in all his life,
0:02:39 > 0:02:43'in the hope of building a psychological profile of the artist.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48'In recent years, a mass of new evidence
0:02:48 > 0:02:51'has been unearthed about his family -
0:02:51 > 0:02:54'stories of manslaughter,
0:02:54 > 0:02:58'counterfeiting, lottery fraud and domestic violence.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04'These discoveries haven't made the headlines,
0:03:04 > 0:03:09'but they may be the key to a quite new way of looking at Vermeer
0:03:09 > 0:03:14'and making sense of some of the greatest paintings ever created.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23'To begin to understand him, we need to understand his city.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28'Vermeer's Delft was a sink-or-swim world, a merchant town
0:03:28 > 0:03:32'where fortunes could be made or lost. Canals were arteries.
0:03:32 > 0:03:38'Water was power, hence the in-your-face splendour of the water board.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43'Vermeer lived in the so-called Golden Age.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47'Trade in the East Indies brought vast wealth,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50'and with it an expanding market for art.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56'But Delft was also scarred by conflict.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00'It had been at the centre of the war with Catholic Spain,
0:04:00 > 0:04:02'and after bitter strife,
0:04:02 > 0:04:05'the Protestants were in the ascendant.'
0:04:10 > 0:04:12Then, in 1652,
0:04:12 > 0:04:16when Vermeer turned 20, it was a city in trauma.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20A freak explosion in the gunpowder stores
0:04:20 > 0:04:24destroyed the town centre and killed hundreds of its citizens.
0:04:25 > 0:04:31Yet there's not a hint of disturbance in Vermeer's Delft interiors.
0:04:32 > 0:04:34Scenes of women playing music,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38thinking, dreaming. And what could be more peaceful
0:04:38 > 0:04:41than his panorama of the city?
0:04:45 > 0:04:51The novelist Proust thought Vermeer's View Of Delft the greatest painting there is.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54One of his characters breathes his last
0:04:54 > 0:04:58thinking of a patch of yellow paint glowing in the sun.
0:04:58 > 0:05:03It's SO becalmed, and for me, that's its mystery,
0:05:03 > 0:05:07The mystery of Vermeer himself. He took a turbulent reality
0:05:07 > 0:05:10and made it look like heaven on earth.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20Was there a pattern to his perfectionism?
0:05:20 > 0:05:22One which could also explain
0:05:22 > 0:05:25his eventual breakdown and madness?
0:05:26 > 0:05:30'I was hoping to find some answers inside the city walls,
0:05:30 > 0:05:34'and in a cunning attempt to blend in with the locals,
0:05:34 > 0:05:37'I'd rented an exceptionally orange bicycle.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42'Vermeer grew up in the centre of town,
0:05:42 > 0:05:46'on the great market square where the rich lived,
0:05:46 > 0:05:50'although he and his family were not very well off.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52'His father, Reynier, who in his youth
0:05:52 > 0:05:57'committed manslaughter in a canalside brawl, owned an inn on the square
0:05:57 > 0:06:01'and ran an art-dealing business on the side.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03'Vermeer grew up among paintings
0:06:03 > 0:06:05'and pints of beer.
0:06:09 > 0:06:13'None of the buildings where he actually lived survives,
0:06:13 > 0:06:17'and it's not always easy to follow in his footsteps.'
0:06:18 > 0:06:23The plaque says that Vermeer was born in this house, in October 1632.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27But it's wrong... He wasn't. X does not mark the spot.
0:06:29 > 0:06:34'The house was around the corner, where today we have the Jan Vermeer
0:06:34 > 0:06:36'Nursery School.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41'He's elusive, too. We don't really know what he looked like.'
0:06:41 > 0:06:44It's thought he included a self-portrait
0:06:44 > 0:06:47as the figure on the left in this painting,
0:06:47 > 0:06:49the first he ever dated, from 1656.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51It's called The Procuress,
0:06:51 > 0:06:56and seems to attempt to depict the world of tavern and brothel,
0:06:56 > 0:07:01the world he'd grown up in. But it's a subject he never returns to.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08The character on the left, itself a quotation from another painting,
0:07:08 > 0:07:11may be Vermeer's own face in the shadows.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14He looks out at us...and leers.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30'For hard evidence, I went to the Delft Archives,
0:07:30 > 0:07:35'where many of the pieces of the Vermeer puzzle are to be found.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38'Although they're only isolated forensic traces,
0:07:38 > 0:07:41'we can start to build a mental picture
0:07:41 > 0:07:45'both of the artist and of the nature of his tragedy.'
0:07:45 > 0:07:47Right. Vermeer's life.
0:07:47 > 0:07:52When we talk about the documents that make up a 17th-century life,
0:07:52 > 0:07:55what kind of documents are we looking at?
0:07:56 > 0:08:02We're looking at registers of baptism, of matrimony, of burial.
0:08:02 > 0:08:08We're looking at testaments, erm... business documents, transactions,
0:08:08 > 0:08:11- that sort of things. - But quite impersonal.
0:08:11 > 0:08:16- We're not talking about personal letters, personal accounts. - None whatsoever.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20So we need to do a bit of reading in between the lines.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23Show me some of the things you have here.
0:08:23 > 0:08:28To start with, here is the register of baptism in the New Church.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32'It's interesting that Vermeer was christened Johannes,
0:08:32 > 0:08:36'rather than plain old Jan - a posh, Latinate name
0:08:36 > 0:08:39'with social aspiration written all over it.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42'His parents clearly had plans for him -
0:08:42 > 0:08:44'ambitions he'd live up to,
0:08:44 > 0:08:48'until his sudden descent into poverty and madness.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51'There's evidence for that in the register of his death
0:08:51 > 0:08:57'from the Delft Charity Chamber, the local social services. When a man died,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00'they'd send for his finest piece of clothing
0:09:00 > 0:09:05'to be sold to raise money for the poor. The best outer garment tax,
0:09:05 > 0:09:08it was called. But when Vermeer died...'
0:09:08 > 0:09:12So this means "Nothing to get"? Then he writes "Nothing" again.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16- Nothing to get. Nothing. - Double nothing. Big fat zero.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18Poor Vermeer.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22'But not the first poor Vermeer.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26'The archives' latest revelation is that fear of financial ruin
0:09:26 > 0:09:30'had haunted the previous generation of his family.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32'Meet the ancestors.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44'His paternal grandmother,
0:09:44 > 0:09:49'Neeltge Goris, or Little Nell, had a job clearing houses of jumble
0:09:49 > 0:09:54'and selling it off for a song. She was an uitdrager -
0:09:54 > 0:09:56'someone who drags things out.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00'Unofficially she was a small-time con artist
0:10:00 > 0:10:03'who ran semi-legal lotteries and raffles
0:10:03 > 0:10:06'and was often in trouble with the law.
0:10:08 > 0:10:11'Vermeer's maternal grandfather, Balthasar,
0:10:11 > 0:10:15'claimed to be an engineer and clockmaker,
0:10:15 > 0:10:18'but when the police arrested him in April 1619,
0:10:18 > 0:10:23'he was running a counterfeit coin operation with his son.
0:10:25 > 0:10:28'Counterfeiting was serious stuff -
0:10:28 > 0:10:31'a crime against the state.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33'Was there no end, I wondered,
0:10:33 > 0:10:36'to the lengths Vermeer's family would go to
0:10:36 > 0:10:38'to keep their heads above water?
0:10:39 > 0:10:43'I went to see an expert on coin forgery, Cor de Graaf,
0:10:43 > 0:10:49'who said he had something to show me to prove not everything was as it seemed.'
0:10:50 > 0:10:51What do you know
0:10:51 > 0:10:54about Vermeer's rather dodgy grandfather,
0:10:54 > 0:10:58- Balthasar Gerrits? - HE CORRECTS THE DUTCH G - Gerrits.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02Well, Balthasar Gerrits was a kind of strange person.
0:11:02 > 0:11:06He tried to make a lot of money by all kinds of means.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08He was a broker for a while.
0:11:08 > 0:11:13He tried to sell shares... of the East India Company.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16He tried to buy and sell houses.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19And he also made false coins. So coin forgery, yes.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23- He literally made some money. - Literally, yes.
0:11:23 > 0:11:28- I assume we know about it because he got caught. - Yes, indeed he was caught.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31But... Yeah, that's also the strange thing.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36He managed to survive, which is very unusual for coin forgers.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43'Like most counterfeiters, two co-conspirators were tortured and beheaded.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46'But not Balthasar.
0:11:46 > 0:11:48'Cor had records of meetings
0:11:48 > 0:11:54'which showed that in his case, it was hushed up at the highest level of government.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56'Balthasar was allowed to go free.'
0:11:56 > 0:12:00- When Balthasar came back to Delft... - Yeah.
0:12:01 > 0:12:06..when it was all swept under the carpet, do you think people here
0:12:06 > 0:12:10- would have known? - Oh, yeah... Definitely.
0:12:10 > 0:12:14The people in a city like this, yeah, they would have known.
0:12:15 > 0:12:20'Whatever the word on the street was, the whole family was involved.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24'Vermeer's uncle was imprisoned as a co-conspirator,
0:12:24 > 0:12:31'and both sides of the family, including Neeltge the uitdrager, rallied round to have him bailed.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34'Whether we consider Balthasar an informer,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37'a common criminal or even a secret agent,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41'this would have been a grim moment in the family history.
0:12:44 > 0:12:50'Prison and torture is the dark side of the 17thC Dutch free market,
0:12:50 > 0:12:54'the other side of the coin. And it's sure as hell a far cry
0:12:54 > 0:12:56'from Vermeer's serene interiors.'
0:12:58 > 0:13:01I wondered if I could make sense of Vermeer
0:13:01 > 0:13:06as a man desperate to escape from the prison of his own dubious past.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09Art was to be his way out and up.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12He became a respectable counterfeiter.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16A forger, not of false coins, but of reality.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23There may have been darkness in his family background
0:13:23 > 0:13:25but he painted light.
0:13:26 > 0:13:31More often than not, the light is falling upon a young woman.
0:13:36 > 0:13:38CHURCH BELLS PEAL
0:13:40 > 0:13:42In 1653,
0:13:42 > 0:13:47at the age of 21, he proposed to Catharina Bolnes, a Catholic girl
0:13:47 > 0:13:51from a wealthy family several rungs higher up the social ladder.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56It was the most important decision of his life.
0:13:59 > 0:14:03We know Vermeer was baptised in the New Church on October 31, 1632.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06And we know that in the Town Hall,
0:14:06 > 0:14:12he declared his intention to marry Catharina Bolnes on April 5th, 1653.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15But for those intervening 21 years,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19more or less everything about his life is a mystery.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23Archivally speaking, a void - not a single document.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27We don't know where he went to school or who taught him to paint,
0:14:27 > 0:14:31but the biggest mystery is how come this Protestant man,
0:14:31 > 0:14:36this son of a publican, with a grandfather with a criminal past
0:14:36 > 0:14:38managed to seduce, and even to marry
0:14:38 > 0:14:42a woman from a highborn Catholic family.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45CHURCH ORGAN PLAYS
0:14:47 > 0:14:54'To be a Catholic was to live part of your life in secret. It meant worship in hidden churches,
0:14:54 > 0:15:00'town houses which were not allowed to advertise their purpose to the outside world.
0:15:00 > 0:15:05'The Amstelkring Museum in Amsterdam is a rare surviving hidden church.
0:15:10 > 0:15:16'The truth is we don't know how Vermeer and Catharina Bolnes met, let alone where.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20'Perhaps through a Catholic artist who was Vermeer's master.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22'But it must have been a love match,
0:15:22 > 0:15:26'as we know Catharina's devoutly Catholic mother
0:15:26 > 0:15:29'initially opposed the marriage.
0:15:29 > 0:15:31'We don't know what happened,
0:15:31 > 0:15:35'but it's likely that in the end she struck a bargain -
0:15:35 > 0:15:38'convert, and Catharina can be yours.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42'And she was.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46'After the secular ceremony in the Town Hall,
0:15:46 > 0:15:51'the couple got married in the village of Schipluiden outside Delft,
0:15:51 > 0:15:57'an enclave of Catholics practising the old faith away from the eyes of authority
0:15:57 > 0:16:00'in what was probably a converted barn.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04'So Vermeer had a new wife, and a new religion.'
0:16:07 > 0:16:12Among his earliest surviving works is Diana And Her Companions,
0:16:12 > 0:16:14Vermeer's only mythological scene.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17But a very quiet, contained moment
0:16:17 > 0:16:20in a story which often ends in violence
0:16:20 > 0:16:22against an intrusive male presence.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28It has clear religious overtones - the foot-washing, the bowl,
0:16:28 > 0:16:32even the napkin, which suggests the shape of a dove -
0:16:32 > 0:16:36have strong Catholic and sacramental associations.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40It's a picture by a man who loved women,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43who loved to look at women and to paint them.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46There's a familiar Vermeer feel here,
0:16:46 > 0:16:50of a moment of beauty which also has a certain fragility:
0:16:50 > 0:16:52peace about to be disturbed.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06In the winter of the same year as his marriage,
0:17:06 > 0:17:11Vermeer registered as a master of the Guild of St Luke in Delft.
0:17:11 > 0:17:13He was going up in the world.
0:17:16 > 0:17:21For most of the rest of his career, Vermeer would paint calm interiors,
0:17:21 > 0:17:25an idealised everyday life of a leisured class.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28But what was his own household like?
0:17:28 > 0:17:31'I think his marriage, his domestic life,
0:17:31 > 0:17:35'was every bit as much a creation as his paintings.
0:17:35 > 0:17:37'As far as we can tell,
0:17:37 > 0:17:41'he and his wife's family moved to the Papen hoek - Papist's corner -
0:17:41 > 0:17:45'and he seems to have left his own close-knit family behind.'
0:17:49 > 0:17:51We know that by about 1660
0:17:51 > 0:17:55Vermeer was living in a house here on the Oude Langendyk.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59We know because he had to bury one of his children,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02and give his address in the register.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04It wasn't a house a poor young artist
0:18:04 > 0:18:08starting out his career could have afforded.
0:18:08 > 0:18:10It was his mother-in-law's house,
0:18:10 > 0:18:15and Vermeer, Catharina, and their increasingly large family
0:18:15 > 0:18:17lived, for his entire working life,
0:18:17 > 0:18:21in Maria Thins', the mother-in-law's, house.
0:18:21 > 0:18:27It's an unusual setup, and if we want to build up a psychological profile of Vermeer
0:18:27 > 0:18:31it's important to understand the nature of his household.
0:18:33 > 0:18:34'Here's what it wasn't.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38'This portrait of the patrician van der Dussen family
0:18:38 > 0:18:43'shows a wealthy Catholic household. Everything speaks of opulence.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46'- note the paintings on the wall - and harmony,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49'hence the music-making.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51'But the home which Vermeer shared
0:18:51 > 0:18:55'with Catharina and her mother, Maria Thins, didn't fit
0:18:55 > 0:18:59'a 17thC cornflake-box ideal. Apart from its potential
0:18:59 > 0:19:05'for mother-in-law jokes, it had its own skeletons in the closet.
0:19:05 > 0:19:08'Unlike this little girl, Vermeer's wife Catharina
0:19:08 > 0:19:12'had grown up in a house in which she was regularly woken
0:19:12 > 0:19:16'not by music, but by her parents fighting.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20'A world in which she sometimes feared for her life.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26'She'd been raised in the nearby town of Gouda.
0:19:26 > 0:19:31'Its archives hold an extraordinary paper trail of angry witness statements
0:19:31 > 0:19:36'from relatives, charting the disintegration of Maria Thins' marriage
0:19:36 > 0:19:40'to the violent and abusive Reynier Bolnes,
0:19:40 > 0:19:44'a wealthy brickmaker whose business was on the slide.'
0:19:46 > 0:19:50What I'm looking for is the deposition which concerns
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Vermeer's mother-in-law
0:19:53 > 0:19:55being beaten up and insulted
0:19:55 > 0:19:59- by her husband, Reynier Bolnes. - Mm-hm.
0:19:59 > 0:20:01I think it's that.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03Yes, it is. Yes.
0:20:03 > 0:20:07He doesn't have very good handwriting.
0:20:07 > 0:20:09No.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11Even I can see that.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13- Lots of crossings out.- Yes.
0:20:13 > 0:20:18- Is that because he's writing down what people say as they say it?- Yes.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21When they make mistakes, he has to, er...
0:20:21 > 0:20:24- It's a fantastically vivid piece of history.- Yes.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28What do they say Reynier Bolnes did to Maria Thins?
0:20:28 > 0:20:31'According to the witnesses,
0:20:31 > 0:20:37'Bolnes used to beat her black and blue until she ran out screaming into the street.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40'He turned her only son against her,
0:20:40 > 0:20:45'and whenever Maria annoyed him he had a nasty habit of taking it out on Catharina.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51'Nobody knows the secrets of a household,
0:20:51 > 0:20:55'but it's a pretty damning dossier of domestic abuse.
0:20:56 > 0:21:01'I wonder what Vermeer made of these tales of Catharina's childhood?
0:21:01 > 0:21:04'Rich Catholics who turn out to be
0:21:04 > 0:21:07'dysfunctional neighbours from hell.
0:21:07 > 0:21:12'After the separation, Maria Thins moved to Delft with Catharina,
0:21:12 > 0:21:16'and Reynier kept custody of their son, Willem.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19'His parting shot was to pull down his breeches
0:21:19 > 0:21:22'and bare his arse to his mother in the street.
0:21:22 > 0:21:27'She shared one thing with Vermeer in the house on the Oude Langendyk -
0:21:27 > 0:21:30'a past she'd rather forget.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44'It's only relatively recently that anyone
0:21:44 > 0:21:48'has wanted to guess Vermeer's mental landscape,
0:21:48 > 0:21:51'but now the process seems unstoppable.
0:21:53 > 0:21:57'I'd come to a film set in Luxembourg to meet Tracy Chevalier,
0:21:57 > 0:22:02'whose novel about the Vermeer household, Girl With A Pearl Earring,
0:22:02 > 0:22:06'has sold more than two million copies.
0:22:06 > 0:22:07'Yet 100 years ago,
0:22:07 > 0:22:12'the painting that inspired her wasn't even recognised as a Vermeer.
0:22:13 > 0:22:18'The Girl With The Pearl was bought at auction for 2 guilders 40 cents.
0:22:18 > 0:22:25'Nowadays she's priceless, known as "the Mona Lisa of the North", and starring in her own movie.'
0:22:30 > 0:22:33It's such a seemingly simple painting,
0:22:33 > 0:22:37but I found that, actually underneath it all,
0:22:37 > 0:22:40it's very hard to tell the narrative of it.
0:22:40 > 0:22:46I think what attracts me about Vermeer's paintings is that he takes away the narrative.
0:22:46 > 0:22:52Typical Dutch paintings of that time tell you what to think. He doesn't.
0:22:52 > 0:22:56He removes the symbols so you're just left with a girl's face
0:22:56 > 0:22:58and you make of it what you will.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03When you look at a Vermeer, you slow down and get quiet.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07And it's like a little gift you get from the painting.
0:23:07 > 0:23:10You can't appreciate a Vermeer quickly.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13You look at it and it's like, "Whoa!" And you stop.
0:23:13 > 0:23:18And you feel like you're becoming the calm person in the painting.
0:23:19 > 0:23:25I always thought of him as a quiet man. The calm appeals to him. There is an intensity
0:23:25 > 0:23:30that he can focus on that corner, and put everything into it.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34He's not painting a huge market scene, a huge world -
0:23:34 > 0:23:37he finds the world in a corner instead.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40Your master's a fine painter, Griet.
0:23:41 > 0:23:42The finest in Delft.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47'In Chevalier's book, the girl with the pearl is Vermeer's servant,
0:23:47 > 0:23:53'who becomes an object of desire for a character who is also Vermeer's patron.'
0:23:53 > 0:23:55He's painted me.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58Perhaps that will be my epitaph.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00'His existence in real life
0:24:00 > 0:24:04'was unknown till recently. His discovery helps explain
0:24:04 > 0:24:09'one of the great mysteries about Vermeer - why he produced so few paintings.
0:24:10 > 0:24:16'The detective here was a man who doggedly combed the Delft archives for over 20 years.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19'Yale professor John Michael Montias.'
0:24:22 > 0:24:27I suddenly realised that various documents relating to a man
0:24:27 > 0:24:30named Pieter Claesz van Ruijven
0:24:30 > 0:24:34actually had to do with a patron of Vermeer,
0:24:34 > 0:24:37which nobody had realised before.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40I sort of put two and two together and it hit me -
0:24:40 > 0:24:44this must have been Vermeer's patron.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49Look at that dress! You can almost stroke the satin.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52Well, we think that he may have painted
0:24:52 > 0:24:54maybe 45 to 55 pictures.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57And we think that...
0:24:57 > 0:25:03he may have sold to his patron
0:25:04 > 0:25:07close to half of his output.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11Can you imagine yourself in such finery, Griet?
0:25:12 > 0:25:14She loved it, you know.
0:25:15 > 0:25:17Men...looking at her.
0:25:22 > 0:25:24Cut and check that, please.
0:25:28 > 0:25:34'Knowing Vermeer had a patron makes a lot of sense, and helps explain why he seems so modern to us.
0:25:34 > 0:25:38'A patron who'd accept whatever he painted
0:25:38 > 0:25:42'gave him freedom to be himself, explore his own vision,
0:25:42 > 0:25:44'rather than play to the market.
0:25:44 > 0:25:49'In New York they have one of the earliest paintings for van Ruijven,
0:25:49 > 0:25:53'where we can see the master manipulator of light and space
0:25:53 > 0:25:55'coming into his own.'
0:25:56 > 0:26:00It's an absolutely wonderful little picture.
0:26:00 > 0:26:01It draws you towards it.
0:26:01 > 0:26:06The girl's face, that beautiful face, flooded with light.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09It's like a beacon. You have to stand here.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12You realise Vermeer has choreographed you.
0:26:12 > 0:26:16He's made you an eavesdropper, a voyeur on a 17thC scene.
0:26:16 > 0:26:20But what is it that you're actually looking at?
0:26:21 > 0:26:25'There's a tremblingly immediate quality to the light,
0:26:25 > 0:26:27how it strikes the young woman's face,
0:26:27 > 0:26:32'giving an electric sense of the contact between a man and a woman,
0:26:32 > 0:26:35'erotic, but also, I think, full of tenderness.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39'As so often in Vermeer, interpretations vary wildly.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44'The man's a soldier, and some say the girl's a prostitute,
0:26:44 > 0:26:49'the map behind her signifying her worldly, and therefore corrupt, nature.
0:26:49 > 0:26:51'I don't buy that.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54'I think it's a picture about the look of love,
0:26:54 > 0:26:57'the instant two people fall for each other.
0:26:57 > 0:27:00'Maybe Vermeer drew on his own memories
0:27:00 > 0:27:03'of falling in love with his beloved Catharina,
0:27:03 > 0:27:08'the light striking her like this? I think painting was his way
0:27:08 > 0:27:11'of preserving those rare moments in life
0:27:11 > 0:27:14'that have real value, real meaning.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21'Nowadays Vermeer's work's in cities all over the world,
0:27:21 > 0:27:22'but in his lifetime
0:27:22 > 0:27:24'he was a stay-at-home.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27'Unlike commercial, self-proclaiming genius
0:27:27 > 0:27:29'Rembrandt,
0:27:29 > 0:27:31'Vermeer was loyal
0:27:31 > 0:27:33'to his patrons and his city.'
0:27:36 > 0:27:40It's fascinating to see a great Rembrandt next to a great Vermeer.
0:27:40 > 0:27:45Rembrandt thrusts himself at you - this rugged paint-handling,
0:27:45 > 0:27:48this presentation of himself, warts and all.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50Vermeer presents this
0:27:50 > 0:27:54mysterious, mirror-like world,
0:27:54 > 0:27:58that leaves you wondering, "Where is he? Where IS Vermeer?"
0:27:58 > 0:28:01You've got a sense he's in there somewhere,
0:28:01 > 0:28:06that somehow his compulsion has shaped the nature of this
0:28:06 > 0:28:10strange, psychological mystery of a picture. What IS going on?
0:28:10 > 0:28:13The mistress looks at a letter the maid holds,
0:28:13 > 0:28:17which catches the light. You sense that
0:28:17 > 0:28:21it will change this woman's life, she's at a crossroads.
0:28:21 > 0:28:26But you don't know how the story ends - Vermeer leaves us guessing.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28He ALWAYS leaves us guessing.
0:28:31 > 0:28:35Some people say it's nothing to do with compulsion,
0:28:35 > 0:28:37it's all down to technique -
0:28:37 > 0:28:41that the mysterious quality of Vermeer's art
0:28:41 > 0:28:43is thanks to his use of lenses.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48And you do meet the most unlikely people in the strange world of Vermeer-vision.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53You'll know better than to take our word for anything by now.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56This is an exact reconstruction of The Music Lesson,
0:28:56 > 0:29:00and the room which Vermeer used as his studio.
0:29:00 > 0:29:04'It's the first time this room has been reconstructed, and...'
0:29:04 > 0:29:10- HE FAST-FORWARDS - 'What do Vermeer's working methods tell us about his mind?
0:29:10 > 0:29:13'I watched footage from BBC archives.
0:29:13 > 0:29:18'Going to great lengths to prove Vermeer used lenses is Dr Phillip Steadman.'
0:29:18 > 0:29:22'That's right, and it's not just me who thinks that.'
0:29:22 > 0:29:28Most writers on Vermeer think he used an instrument like this - a camera obscura.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31- 'This is one...' - HE FAST-FORWARDS
0:29:31 > 0:29:35'There's no real evidence to back up these theories,
0:29:35 > 0:29:39'but I do like the idea that Vermeer might have seen
0:29:39 > 0:29:43'a world transfigured from the confines of a darkened box.'
0:29:43 > 0:29:45'Will Vermeer be there working?
0:29:45 > 0:29:49'We'll see where he's working. This cubicle
0:29:49 > 0:29:51'is his camera obscura.'
0:29:51 > 0:29:55'And it is a working method suited to a man with an obsession.'
0:29:55 > 0:29:58'We can see what Vermeer would actually have seen.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01'He might have worked in stages.'
0:30:01 > 0:30:06'Whether or not Vermeer actually had a walk-in cupboard in his studio,
0:30:06 > 0:30:13'it fits our profile that he should have been attracted by the camera's sealed-off world.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17'I think he fell in love with its silent images formed
0:30:17 > 0:30:23'from rays of light, and tried to give his paintings the same quality.'
0:30:29 > 0:30:34That's why there's almost no trace of drawing in Vermeer,
0:30:34 > 0:30:38as he showed us in his own depiction of The Artist's Studio.
0:30:40 > 0:30:45No painter before him had eliminated line to this extent,
0:30:45 > 0:30:50expressing everything in terms of fluctuating light impressions.
0:30:53 > 0:30:57'It's as if his pictures are actually MADE of light,
0:30:57 > 0:31:01'which is why The Girl With The Pearl still shines so brightly.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04'But technique is only a means to an end.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07'What drives Vermeer is the desire
0:31:07 > 0:31:09'to preserve this look of love.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14'It's a signal. It says, "Yes, there's a spark between us."
0:31:14 > 0:31:20'It's that transient moment when eyes meet, and the world seems to stop.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24'Vermeer knows that it can't last for ever,
0:31:24 > 0:31:28'but he can make it seem as if it can. That's his magic,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32'whether he's back there in his box or not.
0:31:33 > 0:31:35'Lenses helped Vermeer master space,
0:31:35 > 0:31:40'but like every great painter he also wanted to conquer time.
0:31:40 > 0:31:45'He was too much of a control freak to simply paint what was in front of him.'
0:31:45 > 0:31:47We have analysed so many paintings
0:31:47 > 0:31:51with x-ray radiography or infrared photography
0:31:51 > 0:31:57where we can see that he very often starts the building up and eliminates.
0:31:57 > 0:32:01He focuses and changes, and ponders, apparently.
0:32:01 > 0:32:06He might spend time on another painting, then come back and change things.
0:32:06 > 0:32:11A woman in the foreground with a black skirt is not seen in the x-ray
0:32:11 > 0:32:15because the black has not been exposed here,
0:32:15 > 0:32:20but that black dress has got grey stripes painted over it.
0:32:20 > 0:32:26The grey stripes were added when the black paint wrinkled so much that we would say it's cracking.
0:32:26 > 0:32:33That would have been more than six months, nearly a year, after, that he painted that in.
0:32:33 > 0:32:38He moves around the buildings and towers, that are not necessarily
0:32:38 > 0:32:40in this position really.
0:32:40 > 0:32:42It's not a photographic image.
0:32:42 > 0:32:46Sometimes you change things so they look real,
0:32:46 > 0:32:50because reality is not as good as an artist likes it to be.
0:32:50 > 0:32:55You translate. That's the fascinating thing about artists.
0:32:55 > 0:32:58They see what we see, but they are able to translate it
0:32:58 > 0:33:02into a new image that looks real without being it.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06Can we look at The Girl With The Pearl?
0:33:08 > 0:33:10It's a much smaller canvas, and...
0:33:11 > 0:33:13What is this? Is this damage?
0:33:13 > 0:33:20That's damage. All the black spots show where the original paint has been lost, unfortunately.
0:33:20 > 0:33:24The painting has apparently had a very tough life.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28Don't forget, this is almost 400 years old, this girl.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31Who wouldn't have damage in the course of time?
0:33:31 > 0:33:34After our most recent restoration in 1994,
0:33:34 > 0:33:38I had the pleasure of cleaning the painting,
0:33:38 > 0:33:41which means removing the very yellow varnish.
0:33:41 > 0:33:46Not only yellow, but with an additive of black pigment to it.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51Apparently, after the previous treatment in 1952,
0:33:51 > 0:33:57the general opinion in this museum was that the painting was too bright in colour.
0:33:57 > 0:34:02So in order to subdue the brightness of the entire painting,
0:34:02 > 0:34:06this yellow, but also pigmented, varnish was smeared
0:34:06 > 0:34:08over the whole image.
0:34:08 > 0:34:13We had to remove this, and out came the brilliant colours you see today,
0:34:13 > 0:34:15plus a number of details,
0:34:15 > 0:34:19the small reflections of moisture in the corners of her mouth.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22The surface there is so delicately applied.
0:34:22 > 0:34:28You never forget that look. One of the most popular paintings in the Dutch School.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31It is a figure looking out at you.
0:34:31 > 0:34:32You are being drawn in.
0:34:32 > 0:34:39By not explaining what is going on, the fascination will be there for ever. The Mona Lisa
0:34:39 > 0:34:41of the North, you could say.
0:34:41 > 0:34:46I suppose Vermeer understood that if you make a picture that people
0:34:46 > 0:34:51- still wonder about, and WE still wonder about... - 400 years later.
0:34:51 > 0:34:54..then it's a picture people won't pass.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58They were paintings that really worked, in a sense.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02He attained the highest level that a history painter could attain.
0:35:02 > 0:35:09They really captured you. They tell a story, but it's a never-ending story.
0:35:11 > 0:35:13'Another city, another bike.
0:35:22 > 0:35:26'I was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
0:35:28 > 0:35:34'I'd come to Amsterdam to try to find out more about the daily life of the artist.
0:35:35 > 0:35:40'Looking for Vermeer as a pastime, bordering on an obsession,
0:35:40 > 0:35:42'has been made easier by the Internet.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45'I went to see Kees Kaldenbach,
0:35:45 > 0:35:48'who's working on a virtual Vermeer house
0:35:48 > 0:35:51'and has a website dedicated to the artist.'
0:35:51 > 0:35:55Kees, I gather you've been painstakingly attempting
0:35:55 > 0:36:01to reconstruct the house on the Oude Langendyk where Vermeer spent most of his career.
0:36:01 > 0:36:06- Indeed, yes.- Can you just show me what you've done? What have you got here?
0:36:06 > 0:36:13What we see here is the website which contains the full inventory.
0:36:13 > 0:36:16The inventory made after his death?
0:36:16 > 0:36:22Yes. Just a couple of months after he died. By law, an inventory needed to be made.
0:36:22 > 0:36:26It shows us both the objects and the room they were in,
0:36:26 > 0:36:34the name of the room. When we visit the Great Hall, we notice that we have his iron armour and helmet,
0:36:34 > 0:36:38we have a pike, and we have a lead hat.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41A pike? Oh, because he was in the militia?
0:36:41 > 0:36:47He was part of the militia. This was a fact which was only discovered ten years ago.
0:36:47 > 0:36:51So, do you think the world of Vermeer's pictures is grander
0:36:51 > 0:36:54than the actual world he inhabited?
0:36:54 > 0:36:59Absolutely. He lived in a rather large house,
0:36:59 > 0:37:02but he had to share it with loads of people.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05At least four adults, including himself.
0:37:05 > 0:37:0711 children in the year '75.
0:37:07 > 0:37:14The hustle and bustle of birth, pregnancy, midwives, neighbours running in and out -
0:37:14 > 0:37:21because matters of birth and death were very much a neighbourhood event.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23So the picture I'm getting from you
0:37:23 > 0:37:25is very interesting.
0:37:25 > 0:37:30It suggests Vermeer could almost be painting an ideal.
0:37:30 > 0:37:37That may well be right. But what I respond to, visually,
0:37:37 > 0:37:42is not the interior with a certain type of wealth.
0:37:42 > 0:37:48It's the luminosity, the light, the...incredible atmosphere.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52That's what he made. He didn't make a wealthy interior.
0:37:52 > 0:37:55He made something far beyond that,
0:37:55 > 0:37:59and I am gripped to the depths of my soul
0:37:59 > 0:38:03when being face to face by such a painting.
0:38:04 > 0:38:09Vermeer's paintings of women at home alone with their thoughts
0:38:09 > 0:38:11do have a strong spiritual quality.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15In this picture of a pregnant woman holding a balance,
0:38:15 > 0:38:19the painting on the wall is a Last Judgement,
0:38:19 > 0:38:22showing the souls of the damned and the saved.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25It's a moment of solemn contemplation.
0:38:25 > 0:38:31She's thinking that the soul of her unborn child, too, lies in the balance.
0:38:33 > 0:38:40Here, a woman holds a letter in both hands, as if to steady her trembling heart.
0:38:40 > 0:38:47Good news or bad, it's another of Vermeer's moments of suspense, a pregnant pause.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51The faded Delft blue of her dress makes her look like
0:38:51 > 0:38:55a contemporary Madonna in a secular annunciation.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58Vermeer's images of pregnant women are unusual.
0:38:58 > 0:39:02No other Dutch artist painted the subject.
0:39:02 > 0:39:06They seem so perfectly, poignantly tranquil.
0:39:06 > 0:39:13But what lies behind this obsessively recurring dream of domestic peace and harmony?
0:39:13 > 0:39:17I think the answer to that is the key to Vermeer's secret life.
0:39:24 > 0:39:31'In 1662, at the age of 30, Vermeer was elected head man of the Guild of St Luke in Delft.
0:39:31 > 0:39:35'He was at the height of his profession. There's a record of a visit
0:39:35 > 0:39:40'to his studio by a French gentleman diarist the year after.
0:39:40 > 0:39:45'The artist said he had no paintings to show, so they went to a baker
0:39:45 > 0:39:49'who owned a Vermeer which had cost him 600 guilders.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52'The Frenchman thought it overpriced.
0:39:52 > 0:39:57'The fact that Vermeer had no stock may be because he worked to commission.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01'Or perhaps he wanted him out of the house quickly.
0:40:01 > 0:40:06'Because the evidence we have today suggests it wasn't necessarily a happy place.
0:40:06 > 0:40:13'That year Maria Thins' past caught up with her in the form of her unruly son, Willem,
0:40:13 > 0:40:16'the boy who bared his arse at her in Gouda,
0:40:16 > 0:40:20'who now bursts back into the household.
0:40:27 > 0:40:29'The year is 1663.
0:40:29 > 0:40:32'We don't know where Vermeer was,
0:40:32 > 0:40:37'but Catharina was at home with their three girls, pregnant again.'
0:40:37 > 0:40:41- Is this another notary's book? - This is a notary's book, yes.
0:40:43 > 0:40:49This is a testament of people who were there when Willem Bolnes
0:40:49 > 0:40:52misbehaved in the house of his mother.
0:40:52 > 0:40:55He said very ugly words as well,
0:40:55 > 0:40:57which could not be repeated.
0:40:57 > 0:41:05'"Old Popish swine" and "she-devil" were two of the phrases they permitted themselves to record.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07'Bolnes was in a rage.'
0:41:08 > 0:41:14The violence of the father seems to have been repeated in the violence of the son.
0:41:15 > 0:41:22Willem Bolnes thrust at his highly pregnant sister, Catharina.
0:41:22 > 0:41:28And he thrust at her with a stick at the end of which there was an iron pin.
0:41:32 > 0:41:36'According to witnesses, Tanneke Everpoel, the kitchen maid,
0:41:36 > 0:41:40'put herself between the pregnant Catharina
0:41:40 > 0:41:43'and the stick-wielding Willem.'
0:41:45 > 0:41:46What happened to him?
0:41:46 > 0:41:49Is this an attempt to get him sectioned?
0:41:49 > 0:41:55- Yes. He was put away on these sort of testimonies. - I'm not surprised, really.
0:41:55 > 0:42:03'Willem was in fact committed to a private house of correction, run by a man called Hermanus Taerling.'
0:42:04 > 0:42:08The fact that Vermeer isn't in this document and doesn't sign it
0:42:08 > 0:42:12doesn't mean he doesn't care, he just wasn't present,
0:42:12 > 0:42:16- so he can't witness the things Willem did.- Right.
0:42:16 > 0:42:20I think a few months after this happens we have a record
0:42:20 > 0:42:24- I read in another document that Willem has a wound or injury.- Yes.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27And he has to go to hospital.
0:42:27 > 0:42:31Do you think that could have been Vermeer who gives him a clout?
0:42:31 > 0:42:33Well, it is a nice thought.
0:42:33 > 0:42:41But I think Bolnes was hit in the house of Taerling, where he was confined.
0:42:41 > 0:42:47- No, Vermeer went and got him, didn't he? He gave him a bop, eh? - It's nice to think so.
0:42:47 > 0:42:49BOTH CHUCKLE
0:42:51 > 0:42:55'Willem Bolnes, violent son of a violent father,
0:42:55 > 0:43:01'repeating the patterns of the past, spent the rest of his life in the house of correction.
0:43:02 > 0:43:07'I went to see the paintings in the Rijksmuseum to test a theory
0:43:07 > 0:43:11'that Vermeer painted away the pain of reality.'
0:43:11 > 0:43:17They're luminous, compared to the others. The painted light is so extraordinary.
0:43:17 > 0:43:23It's a very beautiful, diffuse light. You see the way it reflects
0:43:23 > 0:43:28and how he depicts the textures, with the little dots in the bread.
0:43:28 > 0:43:32It feels as if the bread is crumbling. On the other hand,
0:43:32 > 0:43:36you also see the little dots of reflection in the cloth.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40My own theory about this picture is straightforward.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43Isn't it possible that it was painted just after
0:43:43 > 0:43:47Willem Bolnes attacked Vermeer's wife and mother-in-law,
0:43:47 > 0:43:52and a maid called Tanneke Everpoel, perhaps this woman, stepped in?
0:43:52 > 0:43:58- And he would have painted it as a kind of homage to the valiant maid? - Yeah, why not?
0:43:59 > 0:44:04Well, I think that's a slightly 19th-century view, as well,
0:44:04 > 0:44:10that the personal life of an artist would have a direct influence on what he would paint.
0:44:10 > 0:44:16Don't you think it's interesting that a man with such a tempestuous personal life
0:44:16 > 0:44:19should paint such fantastic images of calm?
0:44:19 > 0:44:22It's fascinating. You walk around
0:44:22 > 0:44:28and you suddenly see a small Vermeer and it gives a sense of relief and tranquillity.
0:44:28 > 0:44:34But in the background, a mad brother-in-law with an iron pin, attacking women.
0:44:34 > 0:44:42And we know he had 11 children. Actually, probably 13, but we know there were 11.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45So it must have been quite a busy house.
0:44:45 > 0:44:52Children hardly ever appear in his work. They do appear in this picture. Is this...?
0:44:52 > 0:44:57Is this the only painting in which we see children in Vermeer's art?
0:44:57 > 0:45:02Yeah. They are probably playing on the street. We don't know exactly
0:45:02 > 0:45:06because they're so intent on their own action.
0:45:06 > 0:45:14That's something which is typical for Vermeer. His characters are nearly always unaware of us
0:45:14 > 0:45:21as spectators. It's an amazingly, I think, intimate view of a... yeah, a portrait of a street.
0:45:21 > 0:45:27It's nearly voyeurism. We're looking onto a scene and they don't know we're there.
0:45:27 > 0:45:31He creates all these little accidents,
0:45:31 > 0:45:36they're almost like snags, rough edges in the texture, and they catch your eye.
0:45:36 > 0:45:41- Like that fantastic bit of paint. - That makes you accept it as reality.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45Because you recognise it in its imperfection.
0:45:46 > 0:45:52It gives it more mystery because he doesn't give you information bang in your face.
0:45:52 > 0:46:00- And the woman doesn't have a face. - No, he didn't really need to paint it, because it's not about her.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03This is fantastic. Different kinds of stains.
0:46:03 > 0:46:08This is amazing, because here you have, as I interpret it,
0:46:08 > 0:46:11so many people have sat on this bench
0:46:11 > 0:46:17that you have the dirt and the discolouring on the wall behind the bench.
0:46:17 > 0:46:22Like grease on an antimacassar. Accumulated human presence. Fantastic.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28"What a fine piece of work is a home," Vermeer seems to say,
0:46:28 > 0:46:32dwelling on every detail of bricks and mortar.
0:46:33 > 0:46:38By the mid-1660s, with his troublesome brother-in-law locked up
0:46:38 > 0:46:42and the scandals of his own family safely in the past,
0:46:42 > 0:46:45Vermeer was at the peak of his fortunes.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48Thanks to the wealth of his mother-in-law
0:46:48 > 0:46:51and his patron, he could paint what he wanted.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55Perhaps his own life seemed nearly as perfect
0:46:55 > 0:46:58as the dream world of his art.
0:46:58 > 0:47:00But then came the fall.
0:47:03 > 0:47:08In 1672, the French army of Louis XIV invaded,
0:47:08 > 0:47:13and, crucially for Vermeer, the Dutch art market collapsed.
0:47:14 > 0:47:17'Vermeer can now be traced in the archives
0:47:17 > 0:47:22'because he seems to be conducting more business for mother-in-law Maria Thins.
0:47:22 > 0:47:30'She now wanted to claim a legacy that her great-grandfather had left to the Charity Chamber in Gouda.
0:47:30 > 0:47:32'She sent her son-in-law to get it.
0:47:32 > 0:47:39'The young man who hadn't been good enough for her daughter now enjoyed her complete trust.'
0:47:39 > 0:47:42I'm the verger, not to be confused with "virgin".
0:47:42 > 0:47:46'Even though Maria Thins now lived in Delft,
0:47:46 > 0:47:50the family still had wealth and influence here in Gouda.'
0:47:50 > 0:47:54Here, in window No.9, in the lower part,
0:47:54 > 0:47:58is Mr van Hensbeek, great-great-grandfather
0:47:58 > 0:48:03of Catharina Bolnes, the wife of Jan Vermeer. You see him with his wife,
0:48:04 > 0:48:07his coat of arms, his four children,
0:48:07 > 0:48:13and the other little children are the orphans of the orphanage next door.
0:48:13 > 0:48:18- Which he paid for? - Yeah.- He was a rich guy. - He also sponsored the orphanage.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21Can you explain to me this Dutch policy
0:48:21 > 0:48:24of flooding the land when invaders come?
0:48:24 > 0:48:27What's the process, how does this work?
0:48:27 > 0:48:31It's very simple. It's our national trick.
0:48:31 > 0:48:36In times of danger, we just open the gates of the dykes and let the water come in.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40Mind you, we are living two metres below sea level.
0:48:40 > 0:48:44That's why Dutchmen have wooden shoes. They walk on water.
0:48:44 > 0:48:48We did it when the Spanish were here, when the French came,
0:48:48 > 0:48:54and tried it with the Germans, but it didn't work as they came with planes.
0:48:54 > 0:48:55In the Second World War.
0:48:55 > 0:49:01We have a window, window No.25, called The Relief Of Leiden.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04This is during the Spanish occupation,
0:49:05 > 0:49:10and half the window is full of water, with inundation.
0:49:10 > 0:49:15And there you can see in very detailed scenes, how we did the trick.
0:49:15 > 0:49:20If you look in one particular panel in the window, you see some big wheels.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23That's how we opened the heavy doors
0:49:23 > 0:49:25of the gates in the dykes.
0:49:34 > 0:49:39When the Dutch decided to flood their own land in 1672
0:49:39 > 0:49:41it had a disastrous effect
0:49:41 > 0:49:44on the Vermeer family because, as luck had it,
0:49:44 > 0:49:48the land owned by Maria Thins in Schoonhoven
0:49:48 > 0:49:51was right in the middle of the area worst affected.
0:49:51 > 0:49:54She lost almost all the revenues,
0:49:54 > 0:49:58and the Vermeer family fortune went from bad to worse.
0:50:03 > 0:50:08One might ask why Vermeer didn't leave Delft and go to Amsterdam,
0:50:08 > 0:50:11which was richer. The answer may be his patron.
0:50:11 > 0:50:14He had no reason to leave.
0:50:14 > 0:50:18And that is why the death of this patron in 1673,
0:50:18 > 0:50:20two years before his own death,
0:50:20 > 0:50:23must have been such a catastrophe for Vermeer.
0:50:26 > 0:50:28No market, no patron.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32But even that wasn't the end of it.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34Travelling on business for Maria Thins,
0:50:34 > 0:50:37he's guilty of a final, uncharacteristic
0:50:37 > 0:50:39act of betrayal.
0:50:41 > 0:50:43In Amsterdam
0:50:43 > 0:50:49he apparently collected a debt that was due to his mother-in-law,
0:50:49 > 0:50:54and may have pocketed the money.
0:50:56 > 0:51:01For a man who had always been submissive, compliant, modest,
0:51:01 > 0:51:05perhaps woman-worshipping and admiring,
0:51:05 > 0:51:08this must have been a terrible thing for him to do.
0:51:08 > 0:51:12What was Vermeer thinking of? And what was he planning to do
0:51:12 > 0:51:18with the money he'd filched? Invest it in some speculative scheme?
0:51:18 > 0:51:21Cover his debts with one lucky punt?
0:51:21 > 0:51:23We'll never know.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27What we do know is that his plans went awry. He was discovered,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30and five months later he would be dead.
0:51:30 > 0:51:34I wonder if it was the guilt that finished him off?
0:51:36 > 0:51:40'By chance we do have an eyewitness account of Vermeer's death,
0:51:40 > 0:51:45'told by his beloved Catharina to a Gouda notary,
0:51:45 > 0:51:50'written down and still preserved after all these centuries.'
0:51:50 > 0:51:51- Is this the one?- Yes.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55"Catharina Bolnes, widow of the late Johannes Vermeer..."
0:51:55 > 0:51:59'In these pages of spidery handwriting, the last act
0:51:59 > 0:52:03'of Vermeer's personal tragedy unfolds.
0:52:03 > 0:52:04'Catharina says that,
0:52:04 > 0:52:07'"Owing to the burden of his children,
0:52:07 > 0:52:10'having nothing, he lapsed into decay
0:52:10 > 0:52:16'and decadence, which he so took to heart that, as if fallen into a frenzy..."'
0:52:17 > 0:52:21- And then what happened?- And then in a day-and-a-half, he dies.
0:52:22 > 0:52:25That's that. Poor Vermeer.
0:52:33 > 0:52:38'So at the end, Vermeer, who had kept the world at bay so effectively,
0:52:38 > 0:52:42'so obsessively, even, found it crowding in on him.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46'And I wonder if he hadn't painted himself into a corner.
0:52:46 > 0:52:50'His marriage to Catharina, the household of Maria Thins,
0:52:50 > 0:52:55'the patronage of van Ruijven - all gave him his freedom as an artist,
0:52:55 > 0:52:58'to keep the everyday world of children,
0:52:58 > 0:53:01'noise, dirt and even violence at bay.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04'But these things became a prison in the end,
0:53:04 > 0:53:08'and when the lack of income threatened his wife and children,
0:53:08 > 0:53:12'and he betrayed the trust his mother-in-law
0:53:12 > 0:53:16'had placed in him, when he saw no way out, he was devastated.
0:53:18 > 0:53:20'THAT was the madness of Vermeer.'
0:53:29 > 0:53:34They brought Vermeer's body to the Old Church on 15th December, 1675,
0:53:34 > 0:53:38and they laid it to rest in the family grave the next day.
0:53:38 > 0:53:43The grave, like many things in his life, had been paid for by his mother-in-law.
0:53:43 > 0:53:48The Vermeers had buried three of their children there.
0:53:48 > 0:53:53The youngest was removed, the body put on top of the painter's coffin
0:53:53 > 0:53:56before being replaced and covered with earth.
0:54:05 > 0:54:12'After his death came a reckoning. The inventory was made, and an executor appointed by the city.
0:54:12 > 0:54:18'His widow paid off the family's bread bill, about two years' worth, with two paintings.
0:54:18 > 0:54:24'Maria Thins tried to hold on to Vermeer's favourite work by saying it was hers.
0:54:24 > 0:54:29'But the executor was implacable, and the picture was sold at auction.
0:54:29 > 0:54:35'His fears for his family were justified. The Vermeers' social climbing was over.
0:54:35 > 0:54:40'One of the only grandchildren we can trace was an illiterate weaver.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44'Which leaves us with his art,
0:54:44 > 0:54:50'these precious few paintings that seem to bestow a sacramental quality on the everyday.
0:54:50 > 0:54:54'I needed to go back to The Hague for one last look.'
0:54:56 > 0:55:01I've only just realised what's happening in this picture.
0:55:01 > 0:55:06I've looked at it many, many times, and I've never understood
0:55:06 > 0:55:10why the roofscape is painted with this extraordinary, granular
0:55:10 > 0:55:16textured pigment that seems to glitter, especially under a raking light.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19Almost like the texture of sandpaper.
0:55:19 > 0:55:24Well, I suddenly realised today that - duh! - it's been raining.
0:55:24 > 0:55:27The storm has passed, but it's BEEN raining.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30So what we get is sunlight shining onto
0:55:30 > 0:55:34this beautiful, glittering city.
0:55:35 > 0:55:41I think it's also perhaps the key to what Vermeer may have meant by it.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45I think that the picture could be
0:55:47 > 0:55:51a kind of celebration of the moment, in a bigger sense,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54when the storm has passed.
0:55:54 > 0:55:58It's this window onto a peaceful world.
0:55:59 > 0:56:05When I think about what the documents tell us about Vermeer's life
0:56:05 > 0:56:07and his family background,
0:56:07 > 0:56:11I think of this culture in struggle -
0:56:11 > 0:56:16a kind of rat race where everyone's trying to get on, trying to make good.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20Grandpa Vermeer with his counterfeiting scheme,
0:56:20 > 0:56:24Grandma Vermeer, the "out-dragger", running lotteries,
0:56:24 > 0:56:29trying to make a buck, trying to climb up the ladder of social success.
0:56:29 > 0:56:35There's war, there are floods. I can't think of a more turbulent world
0:56:35 > 0:56:38than the one which produced this picture.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41What could be LESS turbulent than this picture?
0:56:41 > 0:56:45There are no floods here, no dykes being broken,
0:56:45 > 0:56:50no soldiers invading, no hucksters trying to fool you, no...
0:56:50 > 0:56:52It's a picture of...
0:56:55 > 0:56:59perfect, perfect tranquillity.
0:57:00 > 0:57:02A radiant vision of peace.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06Something which,
0:57:06 > 0:57:08in Vermeer's world,
0:57:08 > 0:57:10was fantastically precious.
0:57:12 > 0:57:14To him personally,
0:57:14 > 0:57:16but to the culture as a whole.
0:57:16 > 0:57:22And that's why I think this is such a great painting, because it does what art does -
0:57:22 > 0:57:26it gives you what you can't actually have.
0:57:30 > 0:57:32And in the end...
0:57:34 > 0:57:36..for Vermeer...
0:57:36 > 0:57:38the flood-waters would rise
0:57:40 > 0:57:42and he would sink...
0:57:42 > 0:57:45..but he left us this, and that's what counts.
0:57:51 > 0:57:55MUSIC: "Mad World" by Gary Jules and the Group Rules
0:58:00 > 0:58:04# All around me are familiar faces
0:58:04 > 0:58:10# Worn-out places, worn-out faces
0:58:10 > 0:58:15# Bright and early for the daily races
0:58:15 > 0:58:22# Going nowhere, going nowhere
0:58:22 > 0:58:27# And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
0:58:29 > 0:58:33# The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
0:58:33 > 0:58:39# I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
0:58:39 > 0:58:41# When people run in circles
0:58:41 > 0:58:45# It's a very, very
0:58:45 > 0:58:47# Mad world
0:58:50 > 0:58:52# A mad world
0:58:56 > 0:58:58# Mad world. #
0:59:00 > 0:59:03Subtitles by ITFC Ltd for BBC Broadcast - 2003
0:59:03 > 0:59:07E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk