All things excellent

Jan Vermeer - View on Delft

“If the way which I have pointed out as leading to this result seems exceedingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare”

(Spinoza, Ethics V).

In 1632 both the painter Vermeer and the philosopher Spinoza were born in Holland. The first lived in Delft, the second in Amsterdam and The Hague. It certainly isn't obivous to say that next to this outer acquaintance between both men, there is a certain relationship in their work. The paintings of Vermeer are able to express the idea of substance, in relation to the idea that all is one, in a most impressive way: the space of these paintings seems to give a view on all spaces as thus and the light in it is not separated substantially from what it illuminates.

"Determinatio est negatio" says Spinoza, to determinate is to ignore. Every concept is determinated through the difference with other concepts, through what it is 'not'. It only takes through its place in the whole a distinct shape, the totality is given before the entity. And as such also the things painted by Vermeer aren't constructed out of pieces, but seem to deem up from the totality of the canvas in the light, the painted lightpoints order their significance only by the whole.