For the Love of Art: Vermeer and the Poetics of the Gift

This chapter explores Vermeer’s art in relation to the ethics and aesthetics of the gift. The gift culture of Dutch burgher society together with the conceptual framework of the gift paradigm cast new light on Vermeer’s exceptionalism. Vermeer’s depictions of beautiful women and refined courtship encourage the art lover to experience his paintings as if in love with their seductive beauty, figuring the ideal relationship between beholder and artwork, and painter and painting, in contemporary Dutch art theory. As objects of desire of the viewer and Vermeer himself, his paintings thematize art’s inspiration in love, not the desire for fame or profit, laying claim to a gift-like status and carving out a symbolic space exempt from ordinary measures of value.