false 321577 23 There are only 35 known Vermeers extant in the world today. In <I>Girl in Hyacinth Blue</I>, Susan Vreeland posits the existence of a 36th. The story begins at a private boys' academy in Pennsylvania where, in the wake of a faculty member's unexpected death, math teacher Cornelius Engelbrecht makes a surprising revelation to one of his colleagues. He has, he claims, an authentic Vermeer painting, "a most extraordinary painting in which a young girl wearing a short blue smock over a rust-colored skirt sat in profile at a table by an open window." His colleague, an art teacher, is skeptical and though the technique and subject matter are persuasively Vermeer-like, Engelbrecht can offer no hard evidence--no appraisal, no papers--to support his claim. He says only that his father, "who always had a quick eye for fine art, picked it up, let us say, at an advantageous moment." Eventually it is revealed that Engelbrecht's father was a Nazi in charge of rounding up Dutch Jews for deportation and that the picture was looted from one doomed family's home: <blockquote> That's when I saw that painting, behind his head. All blues and yellows and reddish brown, as translucent as lacquer. It had to be a Dutch master. Just then a private found a little kid covered with tablecloths behind some dishes in a sideboard cabinet. We'd almost missed him. </blockquote> By the end of "Love Enough," this first of eight interrelated stories tracing the history of "Girl in Hyacinth Blue," the painting's fate at the hands of guilt-riddled Engelbrecht <I>fils</I> is in question. Unfortunately, there is no doubt about the probable destiny of the previous owners, the Vredenburg family of Rotterdam, who take center stage in the powerful "A Night Different From All Other Nights." Vreeland handles this tale with subtlety and restraint, setting it at Passover, the year before the looting, and choosing to focus on the adolescent Hannah Vredenburg's difficult passage into adulthood in the face of an uncertain future. In the next story, "Adagia," she moves even further into the past to sketch "how love builds itself unconsciously ... out of the momentous ordinary" in a tender portrait of a longtime marriage. Back and back Vreeland goes, back through other owners, other histories, to the very inception of the painting in the homely, everyday objects of the Vermeer household--a daughter's glass of milk, a son's shirt in need of buttons, a wife's beloved sewing basket--"the unacknowledged acts of women to hallow home." <I>Girl in Hyacinth Blue</I> ends with the painting's subject herself, Vermeer's daughter Magdalena, who first sends the portrait out into the world as payment for a family debt, then sees it again, years later at an auction. <blockquote> She thought of all the people in all the paintings she had seen that day, not just Father's, in all the paintings of the world, in fact. Their eyes, the particular turn of a head, their loneliness or suffering or grief was borrowed by an artist to be seen by other people throughout the years who would never see them face to face. People who would be that close to her, she thought, a matter of a few arms' lengths, looking, looking, and they would never know her. </blockquote> In this final passage, Susan Vreeland might be describing her own masterpiece as well as Vermeer's. <I>--Alix Wilber</I> 19815 book 1 10 1998 Girl in Hyacinth Blue total:3317|5:512|4:1242|3:1206|2:314|1:43| 3317 11817 4182 454 4 3 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 31 10:21:27 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 05 11:41:47 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false true Sat May 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun May 18 22:45:39 -0700 2008 Sun May 18 22:51:55 -0700 2008
It is different than Girl in The Pearl Earring, which I lov...more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jan 09 10:00:44 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 09 10:04:35 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Dec 28 22:21:26 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 28 22:22:38 -0800 2008
The story begins with math professor, Cornelius Engelbrecht. He was bequeathed a painting from his father, who claims it a masterpiece by the Dutch artist Vermeer. There are no papers to...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jul 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 05:33:54 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 05:58:05 -0700 2009
Tracey Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring was undoubtedly the best of them, with a solid plotline, populated by recognisable characters and was sophisticated enough t...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 19 21:20:32 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 09:27:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Apr 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 07:08:39 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 07:36:53 -0700 2009 ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Mar 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 15:59:34 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 16:03:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 2 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon May 11 15:14:38 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 15:19:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Sep 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 00:33:52 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 11 00:12:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Oct 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 09:34:05 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 09:38:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sun Nov 23 18:13:17 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 18:24:53 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Dec 17 11:01:09 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 17 11:01:14 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Mar 11 16:00:25 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 11 16:07:05 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false true Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Nov 01 18:53:19 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 01 18:54:05 -0700 2008 1
I thought the idea of moving back in time as the story progresses was so fascinating, although I was disoriented at the beginning of th...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sat Oct 10 09:33:17 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 10 09:34:23 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Feb 28 20:35:12 -0800 2009 Sun Apr 05 12:11:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Sep 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 19:15:52 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 20:28:29 -0700 2009 ...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 05:21:50 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 10 06:27:17 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Oct 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 18 19:18:52 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 19:18:52 -0700 2009 more...]]>