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Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 909.6
EAN: 9781596914445
ISBN: 1596914440
Label: Bloomsbury Press
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: December 26, 2007
Publisher: Bloomsbury Press
Release Date: December 26, 2007
Studio: Bloomsbury Press
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Editorial Review:
In the hands of an award-winning historian, Vermeer’s dazzling paintings become windows that reveal how daily life and thought—from Delft to Beijing—were transformed in the seventeenth century, when the world first became global. A painting shows a military officer in a Dutch sitting room, talking to a laughing girl. In another, a woman at a window weighs pieces of silver. Vermeer’s images captivate us with their beauty and mystery: What stories lie behind these stunningly rendered moments? As Timothy Brook shows us, these pictures, which seem so intimate, actually offer a remarkable view of a rapidly expanding world. The officer’s dashing hat is made of beaver fur, which European explorers got from Native Americans in exchange for weapons. Those beaver pelts, in turn, financed the voyages of sailors seeking new routes to China. There—with silver mined in Peru—Europeans would purchase, by the thousands, the porcelains so often shown in Dutch paintings of this time. Moving outward from Vermeer’s studio, Brook traces the web of trade that was spreading across the globe. The wharves of Holland, wrote a French visitor, were “an inventory of the possible.” Vermeer’s Hat shows just how rich this inventory was, and how the urge to acquire the goods of distant lands was refashioning the world more powerfully than we have yet understood.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Original
Vermeer's Hat is a wonderfully creative book that delves into the broader picture of global trade in the seventeenth century through Johannes Vermeer's paintings. I had some introduction to Vermeer in art appreciation classes, but Brook effectively uses the objects seen in some of his well known paintings to enlighten us about the goings and comings in a world being transformed by trade. Even the effects of climate change figure into his painting of the city of Delft, as revealed by the ... Read More
Rating: - Really surprised me with its excellence
Every once in a while, a book comes along that really surprises me with its excellence - Vermeer's Hat is one of those books. What this book is is a look into the seventeenth century, but as a hook, the book uses eight seventeenth century works of art, that each tells us something about the era in which it was created. And, what makes the book so very interesting is that it covers events and phenomenon that are rarely discussed in other books, such the movement of goods between Europe, Spanish America ... Read More
Rating: - No Man Is An Island
Much more of a book on the economics and cultural impacts of global commercial trade as it developed in the 17th century, than one on the great artist Vermeer.
It contains highly interesting and instructive stories focused on items common to the Dutch experience of Vermeer's day, such as tobacco, silver, and beaver pelts (for hats). Current day trade protectionists should read this intelligent effort by the scholar, Timothy Brook, and reflect.
Rating: - The World Through A Painter's Eye
Timothy Brook examines some of Vermeer's most well known paintings and discovers the complicated world of the seventeenth century can be reached and revived through them. I have admired Vermeer's paintings for many years, but I never realized how much they reflect the world at the time. Even the simplest objects which to the untrained eye look just randomly placed to frame the main subject of a painting turn out to have a deep meaning. A beaver hat and a porcelain bowl remind us of the world wide trade ... Read More
Rating: - As interesting as Jonathan Spence and Simon Schama
A fascinating, erudite but easy-to-read series of chapters on trade, exploration, cross-cultural influence and physical culture, using 17th century Delft as the starting point. but reaching around the globe to Asia and the Americas. I'm a huge Vermeer fan and I visited Delft last April, so the book had an added resonance to me. Although you don't need to be an art lover to appreciate the book, a familiarity with Vermeer makes the argument event more interesting. I visited the Frick Collection yesterday ... Read More
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