Vermeer's Hat

Sitting on the coffee table hiding under a stack of other books, and found when I finally dusted, was Vermeer's Hat by Timothy Brook. This is a terrific read. He has a wonderful way of looking at Vermeer's work; not as an art historian but as a cultural history of the objects, the people, their clothes; the very space itself and leads one through a part of the history of globalization. It's a treasure chest full of bits of social history and culture, and, for me, a new way to look at these and other historical work of art. I always wished that in school they taught like this, a timeline, so that I learned what was being discovered scientifically, what was being written, composed, painted, invented, thought about, talked about and explored.

Johannes Vermeer, Officer and Laughing Girl. 1658, Frick Collection

On a totally different note, the Canadian Government has promised to match all donations made to the Canadian Red Cross for relief help in the catastrophic destruction in the Philippines,  President Benigno Aquino has declared a state of national calamity following Friday's typhoon, which has killed thousands of people. Here is the link.