I am moved to tears. I stand in front of a semi-circular balustrade. Before me hangs a small (21 ⅜” x 17 ⅜”) painting. Most of the canvas is filled with red bricks. Puffy clouds float in the sky in the upper left corner. As my eye gazes downward, I see a woman facing me in the threshold of a house making lace while two children, their backs turned to me, play a game. A woman in the alleyway washes laundry, oblivious to my presence. And in the midst of this, I am moved to tears. There is a sense of quietude, peace, and rightness that is portrayed. The stuff of the earth depicted in the painting is utterly ordinary. But the feeling - the oughtness - of it, tickles the back of my mind and reminds me of other moments in my life I’ve felt like this - my wedding day, the birth of my children, moving into a new house, celebrating birthdays and Christmases and new jobs. Here there is peace. Here there is wholeness. Here there is rest.

Perhaps the most used adjective to describe Johannes Vermeer’s paintings is ‘quiet.’ Certainly we see this in the painting that moved me to tears -  ‘Het straatje’ or ‘The Little Street.’ In it we see ordinary people, in an ordinary street, in an ordinary town in rural Holland. The facades are worn down and cracked while the style of facade indicates that the house is a late medieval one - certainly not a modern, wealthy house for a burgeoning merchant class. The buildings in the painting have no unique architectural features - no wall plaques or signs - and there are no church spires that allow the viewer to place the scene. The scene is so nondescript, that for centuries historians couldn’t locate the scene with any surety, though in 2015 the exact location of the painting was finally sleuthed out. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr, who for years served as curator for Dutch and Flemish paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. said that ‘The Little Street’ is "less about Delft, or even a small fragment of a streetscape in Delft, than about the poetic beauty of everyday life."

The ordinariness, the quietness, the poetic beauty of everyday life depicted in ‘The Little Street’ tells a story. But the reality of the world that Vermeer lived in was different to the peace he painted. When he painted this canvas c. 1657-1661, the Netherlands had just gained their independence from Spain at the end of the Eighty Years War in 1648. They had fought England in the first of four Anglo-Dutch wars (1652-1654) and would fight England again in the Second Anglo-Dutch War during which Vermeer would join the Delft militia and spend the last three years of his life serving in the military. 

But it’s not just the national context that belies the quietude of his paintings. Though he listed his profession as “painter,” he averaged a meager two paintings per year over his 20+ year career and he supported himself as an art dealer rather than a painter. His home must have been chaotic as well. His wife Catharina had 15 children over the course of their marriage, of whom 11 survived. Even in a large house, it must have been far from peaceful. A bankruptcy inventory after his sudden death records that his paint-grinding table was situated in the attic among thirteen drying racks for the family laundry. Not the idealized portrait of a gentleman-painter at leisure.

In this context, the peace that we see in Vermeer’s paintings didn’t just appear. No, I believe that he must have wrestled for the peace he painted. Laura Gascoigne writes that “Vermeer painted the peace he could never have.” In fact, most Vermeer scholars believe that although ‘The Little Street’ appears to be a naturalistic rendition, this painting is a composite of different buildings. In other words, though it feels so real, even the arrangement of the buildings had to be imagined. So, how? How did Vermeer find this poetic beauty just down the street?

He had to see differently. To see - truly see - is as much an art as it is an ability. Russ Ramsey writes, “We don’t just see. We learn to see.” ‘The Little Street’ depicts the most dignified thing in the world - ordinary people, doing ordinary things. But the way that Vermeer beholds and then depicts this scene leads all his viewers to awe, to enchantment. In doing so, Vermeer is showing us his moral imagination, recognizing turning points and possibilities in order to venture down paths that don’t exist yet. Though war abroad and chaos at home may be surrounding his real life, Vermeer is depicting a vision of the Good. Of women quietly at work, of children at play, of a particular-yet-transcendent flourishing and peace. It was this sense that captured my own emotions and imagination. It is this sense that captures me still.

Vermeer’s paintings don’t just capture a quietude of a moment in the mid-17th century, but of a moment-stretched-to-eternity. It is this quality that makes his work speak to us as well. We face a 21st century moment that is full of distrust, loneliness, tribalism, cynicism and despair. We live vast bureaucratic systems that are deeply de-humanizing. Yet from every side, institutional or political strategies are offered as solutions we need for our culture to change. 

Like Vermeer, we need to see. I tend toward criticism, naming the things that are wrong with the world. Breaking down problems into manageable, changeable chunks. Highlighting gaps in what we know. Seeing systems we live in and how they can dehumanize us and mechanize us. But nothing good will be built solely by naming wrongs. I need to attend to the good, true, and beautiful. I need to be captured by a moral imagination that offers a better story. A better Good. Where will we find the wisdom, strength, and joy necessary to transform both our fearful hearts and our weary communities from places of conflict to spaces of communion?

We need to behold ‘The Little Street’ not only as an aesthetic delight of a time long past, but a vision of what could be now. In desiring a life rich in meaning and beauty, we need to lay down our fight for these things and apprentice ourselves to them. We need to let our imaginations discern the turning points and possibilities around each of us that lead to the quietness, peace, and rightness. Johannes Vermeer offers us an opportunity to practice enriching our lives in and through ‘The Little Street.’