Johannes Vermeer

She only had one pearl.

Whoops! Maybe you were looking for Vermont?

Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675) was a 17th century Dutch artist that nobody knew anything about for the longest time except the fact that he painted nice pictures of girls with pearl earrings or pouring milk into a jug.

In 2018, unemployed former art history majors with nothing better to do undertook a monumental research project to try to uncover more about the mysterious painter. After crowdfunding the purchase of a really good antique ouija board, these researchers spent many a sleepless night researching the life of Vermeer. This only happened after accidentally summoning an elemental demon or two, slowing research by having to take time cleaning up blood and guts and also having to look for replacement helpers. Vermeer himself was contacted in August 2018. However, everyone's excitement was tempered by the fact that the man spoke an old form of Dutch and was very, very boring. Many potentially important messages were lost as researchers usually fell asleep during Vermeer's rambling communications. Therefore, Madame Maleva, a do-rag-wearing fortune teller working the ren fair circuit in the mid-Atlantic region, was consulted several times for a more complete picture of the artist. The most important fact discovered was that he looked like Colin Firth.

Early life

Vermeer grew up in Delft where he started painting floral reliefs on dinner plates at an early age. He would always be punished by his father for doing this at the dinner table at dinner time. When he reached working age at 9, he was well-prepared to go to work in one of the Delft ceramic factories. He was initially tasked with painting curlicues and vines, then quickly advanced to the windmill department. His recently discovered employment records reveal that he was "an extremely meticulous worker" having only finished 3 plates in the first year of his employment. The files also indicate his failure to clean his brushes thoroughly so that his blue painting turned muddy, ending up as shades of brown and black. Vermeer was fired, and the starving assembly line worker became a starving artist.

He got a job as a teacher but was dismissed for drinking the paint. Vermeer then switched to painting a lot of boring scenes in and around Delft. He married and had children but no money. Food stamps hadn't been invented yet, so he fed his family tree bark and twigs, telling them it was steak.

The artist had a dull clientele. They liked scenic paintings of Delft and people all dressed in black and white clothing as they were Calvin Klein supporters. This enabled Vermeer to paint really boring paintings in drab blacks, greys and browns.

Artwork

One prick is enough Colin.

Vermeer painted many wonderful paintings like the Girl with the Pearl Earring. His model was Scarlett Johansson who was working in the area to improve her Dutch. As one can tell, this was well before she grew any hair. He also painted her from the other side but this painting was confiscated in 19th century as the right ear was considered dirty in Dutch culture of the time. It still is in parts of Outer, or Ned, Flanders.

Vermeer also painted a lot of people standing by windows. This was said to be the 'natural look' but Vermeer was just being Dutch cheesy about buying candles to provide decent illumination.

Death

He died once or something and is buried somewhere. Most of his paintings were lost or re-used as wood panelling. A few survived long enough to call him a genius. Vermeer didn't cut off his ear or appear in an Emmanuelle film. He was quite boring.