dual personalities

I borrowed the title of this post from an Isaac Rosenberg poem that I recently came across called “Break of Day in the Trenches” . I love his characterization of Time as a constant yet somehow irrelevant force. Time didn’t mean much to the men awaiting death in the trenches, and it seems to have lost some of its power in these Covid lockdown days. Well, I do not plan to dwell on sad WWI poetry today, and I’ve definitely had enough of Covid, so I thought we could celebrate Johannes Vermeer’s Halloween birthday by looking at a couple of his marvelous paintings.

Born in Delft in 1632, Vermeer inherited his father’s art dealer business when he was only 20. Shortly after, he married a well-to-do local woman and they went on to have 14 children, of whom four died in infancy. Vermeer himself died at the age of 43. They certainly used to pack a lot into their short lives, while we who enjoy comparatively longer lives often squander our extra time. As Amor Towles wrote, we “shell our days like peanuts”. Just how and when Vermeer learned to paint no one knows, but he sure could wield a brush!

His sense of light, color and perspective is incomparable.

Our mother introduced us to the Dutch painters early on. We had a reproduction of The Milkmaid in our kitchen and plenty of art books around.

As I have mentioned before, three channels of black and white TV and nothing else to do are enough to get anyone reading and studying pictures. Looking back, I see how my own house, our mother, and art books shaped my taste in interior decoration and preference for natural light.

Unless one’s main goal is to follow fashion, great art provides a better aesthetic model than interior decorating magazines. Each one of Vermeer’s paintings invites the viewer to create a story about the figures and scenes depicted. His paintings pique our interest in times past and exercise our senses. I think it’s time to look at some of those large art books gathering dust on my shelves!

Moving from the sublime to the practical, I will leave you with my latest household wonder discovery — vinegar! The calcium build-up on our faucets and around drains had become so bad that I had started to plan renovations. (You might think it a tad excessive to rip out perfectly good faucets, but they were horrible.) The internet provided the answer: soak rags in vinegar and cover the encrusted area. Leave for an hour or two and then simply wipe it off. My faucets look like new!

Have a Happy Halloween and don’t let the ghouls get you down!