Théophile Thoré-Bürger

Photograph of Thoré-Bürger from the sales catalogue of the Thoré-Bürger collection, 1892. The "rediscovery" of Vermeer is predominantly attributed to scholar, collector, French Salon critic and co-founder of L'Alliance des arts , Etienne Joseph Théophile Thoré (1807–1869), sometimes, Thoré-Bürger, Thoré or Willem Bürger. His criticism derided French Baroque painting as too heavily influenced by Italy, terming it as inauthentic of a national identity. He lauded Dutch seventeenth-century naturalism and what has subsequently come to be seen as the acme of Netherlandish painting, the art of the Dutch Republic. It's direct appeal to simple human virtues, he declared made it an art for the people ("l'art pour l'homme"). He continued to deplore the dark history painting of the Academie and the Second Empire, particularly that of Jean-Léon Gérôme and Alexandre Cabanel, in favor of Realism painter such as Gustave Courbet (his favorite), Jean-François Millet, and the Impressionists Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Auguste Renoir. As early as 1860, Thoré began purchasing Vermeer paintings. A Lady Standing at a Virginal (1672–1673), National Gallery, London) was acquired sometime before 1876, Woman with a Pearl Necklace (1664, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) was bought from Henry Grevedon in June 1866. A Lady Seated at a Virginal (1675, National Gallery, London) was purchased for a mere two thousand francs in 1867. The sale of his collection by in 1892 brought the Vermeers and other works into more public collections. MUSEES DE AL HOLLANDE 1807–1869 Click here to read the book online.ì Théophile Thoré , the French critic and politician, in the first major study of Vermeer, published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1866 under the pseudonym of W. Bürger. "A dozen years ago, Jan van der Meer of Delft was almost unknown in France," wrote Thoré. "His Name was missing from the biographies and histories of painting; his works were missing from the museums and private collections." "Even after seeing the Night Watch , the Syndics [by Rembrandt] and the other marvels of the Amsterdam museum, I retained an indelible memory of its masterpiece—by van der Meer of Delft! Well! In those days, we all thought of painting as something to please the eye and to write elegant descriptions for, without worrying too much about the history of art and artists. "Later, even before 1848, having returned to Holland several times, I also had the opportunity of visiting the principal private galleries, and in that of M. Six van Hillegom—the happy owner of the celebrated portrait of his ancestor, Burgomaster Jan Six, by Rembrandt—there I found two more extraordinary paintings: a Servant pouring milk and the Façade of a Dutch house,—by Jan van der Meer of Delft! The astounding painter! But, after Rembrandt and Frans Hals, is this van der Meer, then, one of the foremost masters of the entire Dutch School? How was it that one knew nothing of an artist who equals, if he does not surpass, Pieter de Hooch and Metsu? "Later after 1848 having become, of necessity, an exile, and, by instinct, a cosmopolitan, living in turn in England, Germany, Belgium, and Holland, I was able to explore the museums of Europe, collect traditions, read, in all languages, books on art, and attempt to untangle somewhat the still confused history of the Northern schools, especially the Dutch school, of Rembrandt and his circle and my 'sphinx's van der Meer. One most remarkable taspects of Vermeer's The Art of Painting is the fascinating illusionistic rendering of the individual elements in the picture, the intricate perspective and the effects of llight effects, which cannot be overstated. The art historian Hans Sedlmayr made clear – ‘the actual subject of the picture was light intselft. In the words of Thoré, " The light seems to come from the painting itself, and naive viewers could well imagine the daylight to be slipping through between canvas and frame ." 1. Also known as the Société de l'All