Vermeer und Epikur

Vermeer van Delft is considered to be the most important painter of Dutch life in the so-called Golden Age. Many studies of his paintings have dealt with deciphering concealed connections and symbolic references. The research has up to now assumed that the philosophy of Spinoza and Descartes may have influenced the painter. Andreas Prater, in contrast, shows that and how particular maxims and sentences by Epicurus and his Latin successor Lucretius were incorporated in Vermeer’s paintings. Epicurus was rediscovered in the seventeenth century and his doctrines of joy and desire, which had fallen into disrepute for a long time, rehabilitated. The hitherto neglected and unknown aspects make the work of the great Dutch painter appear in an entirely new light.