Marcel Proust, Adolf Hitler, and Salvador Dalí were all deeply into the art of Johannes Vermeer. In Swann’s Way, the first volume of Proust’s masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, the main character, Charles Swann, was supposedly working on an in-depth essay on Vermeer. Upon the invasion of Austria, Hitler purchased/stole Vermeer’s The Art of Painting for his personal collection. Dalí paid homage to Vermeer in his painting The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table. This animation is rooted in Vermeer’s The Art of Painting. It is my humble tribute to Vermeer, who perhaps more than any other artist can be described as a pure artist. I understand that term has both positive and negative connotations, positive in that pure artists are fully dedicated to their craft, negative because art should be about something beyond itself. Nevertheless, Vermeer is one of my favorite artists.
Animation duration: 33.9 seconds, before looping.
Peter Schmideg