Michael White
Travels in Vermeer: A Memoir by Michael White is part travelogue, part memoir, and part art appreciation.
Michael White, an award-winning poet, chairs the creative writing department in the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. He opens his memoir with an account of his bitter divorce as he and his wife argue over custody of their young daughter, Sophia. He travels to Amsterdam during his spring break to recuperate. At the Rijksmuseum, he stands transfixed in front of The Milkmaid by the seventeenth-century Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer. So entranced is he by the painting that he embarks on a year-long pilgrimage to see the works of Vermeer in museums and galleries across Europe and the U.S.
White travels to The Hague, Delft, Washington, and New York, concluding his tour of Vermeer paintings in London. Along the way, he shares intimate details of his childhood, his first and second marriages, his attempts at dating after his divorce, and the overwhelming love he feels for his daughter. The personal stories act as segues to take the reader from one location to the next, from one Vermeer painting to the next. The writing is engaging and lucid. But it is when he stands in front of a Vermeer painting that White’s diction soars to new heights in a luminous description of what he sees and what feels as he sees.
White builds anticipation by walking the reader through each museum and gallery as he hastily makes his way toward a Vermeer. As soon as his eye catches a Vermeer, he stands in front of it, transfixed. He is riveted by what he sees. He observes intricate details in each painting, details that are inevitably missed by the untrained eye. He gushes at the interplay of light and shade, the bright reds and golds, the shifts in perspective, and the overall composition. He explores the faces of Vermeer’s women as they look back at him, speculates on their temperament and the circumstances captured in each frame. At times he stretches the interpretation further than seems warranted. Above all, he is enthralled by the serenity and stillness and luminosity that the paintings exude.
At the conclusion of his year-long odyssey, White recognizes his intimate discourse with Vermeer’s art has been profoundly transformative and facilitated his healing. His reading of Vermeer’s paintings is fascinating and shows a discerning eye sensitive to shape, form, color, and detail. He speaks with a breathless intensity infused with passion as he explores each painting, extolling Vermeer’s skill and vision in poetic, glowing terms. With astute insights and a skillful use of language, White captures Vermeer’s radiance with an infectious appreciation for the artist’s body of work.
Highly recommended.