Even… maybe you are still cold!

My friend warned me about the weather outside. AccuWeather says in Den Haag is between 12-15 degree Celsius today. I don’t have a good sense of temperature but yesterday was quite cold in Delft although the sun was shining. It’s the wind that makes it chilly.

Ya, yesterday I spent a half-day in Delft – the famous city for blue-white ceramic. It’s always nice to start exploring a city from a big zero. I was given a very useful tourist map that helped me find the center of city attraction. The city is not big and again it’s another city with moat around. Like Amsterdam, Delft has a lot of canal rivers along rows of old buildings from the 15th.

I started my city tour on foot by visiting Vermeer’s museum near the old city center. Center is again a plaza with a new church (or Nieuwe Kerk with the mausoleum of William of Orange) and a town hall with alfresco café on both sides. The scale is much bigger than of in Wageningen. I didn’t realize that Vermeer is from Delft. So there are three things about Delft (now I know): Delftware (the white-blue ceramic), House of Orange, and Vermeer.

I’m familiar with only a few of Vermeer’s works like ‘the milkmaid’ (a lady pouring milk on a pan) but really visiting museum is not just for enjoying the work but also for learning more about something or somebody. The little museum has three levels. On the basement, a video about Delft as Vermeer’s painting objects is played continuously and reproduction of Vermeer’s paintings are arranged according to the years. It’s so well presented that we can learn how he developed his style and theme.

The ground level, where the museum shop is, shows the study of his paintings like how he captured drop light, bright light, and mirror image on his paintings. It says Apart from the atmospheric colors and the harmonious and balanced composition, it is the depth and the use of light in particular that makes Vermeer’s paintings so fascinating. He is called the Master of Light. We can also learn how he made the perspective. He liked to paint people (mostly women) in a corner of a room with window on right hand side where the light shines on the objects. For it he became famous. There’s a setup corner of one of his famous paintings that a tourist from England and I made pictures. We posed as the women on ‘lady writing a letter with her maid’ painting. I didn’t mind to be the maid but later the British lady actually looked better ‘as maid’ because she is taller than me. We had so much fun making the pictures. Nice British couple!

The upper level shows research on the meaning of Vermeer’s paintings. Some paintings are ‘peeled’ by highlighting a part to be analyzed. Like ‘who seduced who,’ ‘paid love,’ ‘true love,’… It's also mentioned that experts have doubts about the originality of some of his paintings. It shows a painting with a disproportionate sitting lady that becomes the discussion of if he painted it or he made mistake. It’s really interesting. Had once worked on Basuki Abdullah’s museum revamp in Jakarta, I learned that a museum doesn’t have to have original works to show. It is more important to share the study of the work than “just” enjoying the original work without learning the idea behind the work. Let proper museums keep the original works that we can visit sometime but to learn about a maestro in “his place” is nice. Anyway, yes, the museum is so inspiring.

I had a few minutes to check out city map before ran for canal river tour that leaves in the hour. I was the last passenger of 15 in. I was the youngest (the rest are above 60) and the only one who speaks English. So the guide had to speak English after Dutch and German. Nice driver and guide! He took us through the canals and told a bit about the old buildings and in the end of the tour he stopped at the spot where Vermeer painted a Delft view from water. The guide showed us the copy of the work for us to compare with the real view. It's fun to imagine how things were in the 16th century.

Good timing! I finished the Delft old city tour on foot in the afternoon. After bought a memento (that many might think it's strange because the memento is kids klompen but heavily worn!), I had a quick look at the Oude Kerk where Vermeer was buried standing up because he was so poor when he died. Isn’t it interesting for such a famous citizen of a city?

Me as maid in Vermeer’s painting.