Close to Vermeer Paints a Vivid, Behind-the-Scenes Portrait of Art-World Exhibitions

While Johannes Vermeer, the Dutch baroque master who painted some 30-odd works during his career, is generally considered an enigmatic figure in the art world, curators and experts have nonetheless dedicated their entire careers to evaluating his comparatively limited oeuvre. Thus, Gregor Weber, a highly-regarded expert on the artist, considers the “crown jewel” of his career to be overseeing the largest and most encompassing Vermeer exhibit ever at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The planning and execution of this Vermeer retrospective is the focus of Suzanne Raes’s documentary Close to Vermeer, which unfurls into an engrossing 79-minute exploration of the experts, museums and debates that continue to engage with the artist and his legacy.

Just a year away from retirement, Weber embarks on a quest to acquire as many Vermeer paintings as possible for the swiftly-approaching exhibit. Despite being a Dutch artistic icon, many of Vermeer’s works – including recognizable artworks The Milkmaid and The Art of Painting – are currently (and perhaps forever destined to be) part of permanent collections at foreign museums. As such, he and several Rijksmuseum colleagues, including fellow Vermeer historian Pieter Roelofs, attempt to secure loans of those paintings. They travel to The Frick and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, Germany’s Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum and even the neighboring Dutch Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. When able to secure pieces for the exhibit, researcher and conservator Anna Krekeler puts them under her microscope and relishes in the details of Vermeer’s brushwork up-close.

Though much of the doc’s beauty clearly stems from the gorgeous details inherent to the 17th century artist’s motifs, the overall momentum of the film is driven by art-world politics that typically don’t filter down into public consciousness. For example, a standoff of sorts develops when American researchers decide to disavow a work long considered to be an authentic Vermeer due to the predominance of a green hue in a subject’s flesh tone. Weber contests this finding – but is it due to genuine scholarly disagreement, or because he’s down to the wire in terms of making decisions for the Rijksmuseum exhibit?

Then again, the so-called “drama” of the doc never feels inauthentic or, worse, milked for the sake of the camera. Through the bureaucratic hurdles and art world politicking behind this Vermeer exhibit’s orchestration, Raes manages to offer some cursory illuminations of the fine art world as a whole. Not only that, but she pierces what many consider to be an impenetrable white wall as she breaks down Vermeer’s artist background and why his work is so esteemed, sheds light on art preservation protocol, and cuts through museum acquisition jargon to show curatorial decisions. Above all, she allows for genuine connection between viewers and the film’s subjects, allowing them to rant and rave about an artist that most only know for The Girl with the Pearl Earring. “I want to understand how he was able to paint these wonderful pictures,” Krekeler muses while gazing at Vermeer’s 1658 work The Little Street. “Take this red shutter, possibly the most beautiful shutter in the history of art.” At first, her declaration feels exaggerated; but as Raes’s camera hones in on this detail and then cuts to Krekeler looking at the painting with utmost knowledge and respect, her fervor is nothing short of contagious. Suddenly, even the most superficial of fine art appreciators can say with (perhaps unmerited) gumption that this is, indeed, the most gorgeous shutter ever put to canvas.

Pleasant and contemplative, Close to Vermeer chronicles an exhibit of a master that both civilians and historians know startlingly little about, considering the profound impact he’s had on the craft of painting. “It would be interesting to know what he actually looked like,” Krekeler tells Weber as they stare at a piece that was once believed to be an authentic Vermeer (and a self-portrait, at that). “I think we have the need for this ‘personal’ approach,” he tells her before going on to conclude, “All we have are his paintings.” Indeed, even without the personal details of Vermeer’s life available for our consumption, his richly-pigmented works – still bright and stunning about 350 years on – speak for themselves. And when they can’t, a dedicated group of scholars and researchers do their best to speak on the art’s (and artist’s) behalf.

Director: Suzanne Raes
Writer: Suzanne Raes
Release Date: July 21, 2023 (Kino Lorber)

Natalia Keogan is Filmmaker Magazine’s web editor, and regularly contributes freelance film reviews here at Paste. Her writing has also appeared in Blood Knife Magazine, SlashFilm and Daily Grindhouse, among others. She lives in Queens with her large orange cat. Find her on Twitter @nataliakeogan