Walking Hand in Hand with Vermeer

If in Belgium I felt like I was witnessing Van Eyck's paintings being brought to life (without the religious parts, of course), here in Amsterdam I am forever walking in Vermeer's world. Visiting the Rijksmuseum introduced me to another level of viewing pleasure, as I cemented the fact that though I am fond of the Italian Masters, nothing can compare with my response to Dutch painting.

Nina could accept, but not get her head around my love of still life. Please google "Willem Kalf". Looking at one of his canvases I am overcome with a kind of reverence almost painful in its magnitude. All of his works display such feats of realism that go beyond simple trompe l'oeil illusionism. He does not paint reality, he creates something so much better. Kalf's use of colour is tactile in a way I wouldn't have thought possible for an image so free of brushstrokes.

By the same principle I was rendered speechless, and truthfully a little misty eyed, in front of a Ter Borch, whose talent of painting silk dresses in particular, is unsurpassable. No matter how hard I looked I couldn't reduce the silk to canvas and paint.