I read (in Jane Cameron’s The Artist’s Way if I remember correctly) that, in order to set creative juices free, you need to nurture your soul. One of the things she suggests is to take yourself on a date.
I had initially invited a friend to come with me to Amsterdam for a day trip to see the much-anticipated Vermeer exhibition. She had baulked at the suggestion of an eight-hour journey time (no stamina). I didn’t invite anyone else – it suddenly appealed immensely to go on my own. We have all taken ourselves on many dates without realising it but to do so determinedly felt like a ridiculously long-overdue grown-up thing to do. I don’t know why I wanted to see this exhibition so much and The Girl with the Pearl Earring specifically. It’s not like I have ever even watched the Scarlett Johanssen film. I booked a ticket to the exhibition and my Eurostar return way before the ecstatic reviews, the ensuing hype took over, before you heard of people buying membership to the Rijkmusuem in order to get a ticket or paying FA Cup final ticket prices. By which time my date had taken on a smugness all of its own.
The day got off without a hitch with double espresso and pain aux raisin to sustain on the journey. Not a single English voice on the train αdded to the romance. The French, Belgium and Dutch sped past me as I noted a cliche of windmills, fields divided by waterways, steeple churches and canals.
I have seen Vermeer's The Milkmaid at the Rijk twice before in the last ten years and each time entranced by the colours, light, fold of the blue apron fabric, the stark white head covering and, majorly, by how long ago it was painted. The Milkmaid's apron appears to be a rich indigo denim colour with ruched top, over a full burgundy skirt with a close-fitted muted yellow top. Vermeer's grandfather was a tailor and his father trained as a 'caffawercker' who wove sumptuous 'caffa' fabric made from a blend of silk with wool or cotton. In all likelihood, his father's career had a big impact on the nature of Vermeer's art. The girl in the Milkmaid was of course a lowly person yet even her clothes show an extravagance of character. In other paintings of higher born women he reflects their wealth by dressing them in the fabrics from Asia and North American that were shipped to Holland by the East India and West India Company. Feast your eyes on the sky-blue taffeta dress of the haughty muse in The Art of Painting complete with matching headband, the artist's accordion effect black with white pannelling shirt and velvet beret and the pop of his red stockings. Not to mention the over-the-top carpet curtain and tapestries – could these fabrics be any more excessive?
In the Milkmaid, I love that this is a moment in time (or is it, see below) with the milk being poured from the jug into the delicious bread pudding. I didn’t know until this visit that all Vermeer’s subjects were not real but from his imagination. Could he, if it were 2023 and not 1658, simply have input a gender, age and ethnicity into www.this-person-does-not-exist.com (like a few authors I know do to come up with minor characters in their stories) and painted that person with the same effect? Does the fiction add to its otherworldliness? For it is otherworldly. Though surely they exist because they are subjects of his paintings … a question for the philosophers. Vermeer, dead for 450 years, painted The Girl with the Pearl Earring, who never existed, but of course she does ... she is one of the most famous people in history.
I’m ahead of myself. I alight (keeping with the date language) and I’m wandering through the centre of Amsterdam within ten minutes later. The pancake shops look enticing, the oldest sex museum has had a revamp (Venus is glistening) and, boy, the dizzyingly pleasant smell of weed is giving me the munchies. I do worry about all the Edam cheese (who is going to eat all that cheese?) and tulip bulbs (who is going to plant all those bulbs?)
In the queue the Chosen Ones as I have come to recognise myself part of are issued with yellow wristbands, proof of specialness, and ushered into a separate door of the museum. The paintings (28 out of 37 attributed to Vermeer) are grouped thematically so it’s not until room 8 that there she is in all her glory. I hadn’t expected such a physical reaction. It was a liquifying, akin to intoxicating, moment – like I’d got a shot of some powerful drug. Her (the girl with the pearl earring) stare bewitches you and I’d have done anything she’d asked. The exhibition is being hailed as a once in a lifetime experience but it won’t be. This might be my first date with myself but it won’t be my last and I am waiting for other galleries round the world to take note to I can continue my solo tours.