Johannes Vermeer invented no new subjects; instead, he transformed the familiar subjects he inherited by using techniques that suffused them with a kind of visual magic. The View of Delft, his city view in the collection of the Mauritshuis, The Hague, is based on a long tradition of topographical paintings, none of which has the same unforgettable effect. Walsh investigates what sets this painting apart.

1. Abraham Bloemaert’s Deluge and the Dawn of the Golden Age
2. Jan Steen’s Card Players and Dutch Genre Painting
3. Jacob van Ruisdael’s Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede and Dutch Landscape
4. The Night Watch: Rembrandt, Group Portraiture, and Dutch History
5. Frans Hals’s Portrait of a Preacher: Virtuosity and the Rough Style
6. Johannes Vermeer’s View of Delft: The Prose and Poetry of View Painting

In January and February 2015, John Walsh offered a series of six lectures that explores the Golden Age of Dutch art.

John Walsh, B.A. 1961, is Director Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and a specialist in Dutch paintings. He was a paintings curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has taught history of art courses at Columbia and Harvard and currently teaches at Yale.