For four months, artist Carolien van Olphen (51) from Groningen delved into the head of Johannes Vermeer, the seventeenth-century painter of, among other things, The Milkmaid. What colors would he have used? Which brushes? How thick did he apply the paint to his canvas? All this for the TV program ‘De Nieuwe Vermeer’ from broadcaster MAX. On Sunday evening, Van Olphen can be seen on NPO1.
In the TV show, participants have to reproduce a different painting by Vermeer that has disappeared in each episode. Which one did you make?
,,My opponent Niek and I were allowed The concert imitate Vermeer. More than thirty years ago, that painting was stolen in a major art heist from a museum in Boston. We had to recreate the work using photographic material from the 1970s.
Vermeer made no more than 45 paintings in his entire career, 35 of which are known. We know five paintings from descriptions in a catalog from the seventeenth century, but it has never been possible to link those descriptions to the paintings we know. In the five other episodes, the contestants had to create paintings based on that description. So my assignment was a special case. I had footage to hold on to.”
Then you don’t have to use your imagination as much and you can just paint the photo, right?
,,The other participants could indeed fill in more themselves, but the challenge was to make the painting as it would have come off the easel all those centuries ago. The colors of a work change a lot over the centuries. If yellow and blue are mixed to make green, for example, the yellow can disappear and you are left with blue trees, for example. In the painting the girl is wearing gray clothes, which Vermeer would not have done.
I worked on this alone for four months and it was difficult at times and took a lot of energy. I am a full-time artist and when I make my own works I can work much more on autopilot. I had to let go of myself and ask myself all the time: would Vermeer have done this?”
Why actually Vermeer?
“There is now a very large exhibition in the Rijksmuseum. There are 28 of his works on display, which has never happened before. The tickets for this are already sold out and the first episode coincided with the opening of the exhibition. Chief curator of the Rijksmuseum Pieter Hendriks and Abbie Vandivere of the Mauritshuis are on the jury. It is therefore a collaboration between the Rijksmuseum and Omroep MAX.
But Vermeer is also an intriguing artist. He created so few works of art and we know very little about his life and the stories behind his works. There are also no sketches at all, as there are by Rembrandt, for example.”
Are you a big Vermeer fan yourself?
“This made me appreciate him more, but I myself prefer works of art in which people are central. This is also the case in my own works. Vermeer’s works are more about the story. I am a contemporary realist and paint a lot of portraits, especially of girls. I like vibrant colors without being loud. Apart from the person, little happens in my paintings. That is different with Vermeer. I know that I will never paint a tile floor again, that was really terrible.”
How did you get into the program?
,,I was asked for this, after which an extensive casting process followed in which they checked whether I look good on camera. Each episode features two master painters. These are professional artists who have been asked to copy the works as closely as possible. In addition, there is the free category, with people who could give themselves up and who had more freedom in their interpretation of the work.
In the four months that this lasted, recordings were made and I had to vlog myself. We also went to Boston, to the museum where the works were on display. That is very bizarre, because there is a room there with all empty frames where the works once hung.
The Nieuwe Vermeer can be seen on NPO1 on Sunday evening from 8.24 pm. If Van Olphen wins on Sunday evening, her artwork will be exhibited from March 20 to June 4 in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, together with the works of the winners of the other episodes.