Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Vermeer Poster

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Johannes Vermeer, c. 1655, is one of the artist’s earliest and least characteristic paintings as the only history painting that he ever produced. In a warmly colored, interior setting, Christ speaks to two women who wait upon him, in a painting that anticipates the tonality and dramatic natural lighting of Vermeer’s later paintings. Johannes (Jan) Vermeer (1632 - 1675) was a Dutch master painter of interior genre scenes whose works were rediscovered in the 19th century. In carefully constructed, geometric compositions drawn in meticulous linear perspective, Vermeer explored the effects of light and color across human figures, objects and textures in sunlit, domestic rooms, building upon the optical discoveries and 3D perspectival depth of Leonardo and the Renaissance. Both a painter and an art dealer, Vermeer slowly produced a few of his painstakingly executed, richly pigmented compositions per year, living entirely within his home city of Delft, eschewing the fame of his near contemporaries Rubens and Rembrandt that he achieved finally in the modern era.