Vermeer's Hat

“Art critic James Elkins has argued that paintings are puzzles that we feel compelled to solve in order to ease our perplexities about the world in which we find ourselves, as well as our uncertainties as to just how it is that we found ourselves here.”

Brook notes how paintings are considered puzzles that people feel inclined to solve. The hope is that by “solving” a painting, people can better understand themselves in relation to the world

“Paintings are not ‘taken’, like photographs; they are ‘made’, carefully and deliberately, and not to show an objective reality so much as to present a particular scenario.”

Brook makes an important distinction about what paintings really convey: they are not meant to be objective, but are subjective and convey what the painter wants to express.

“If there is one overwhelming condition that shaped the history of the 17th century more than any other, it is global cooling.”

An interesting case is made that global cooling resulted in the movement of game and fish, thus causing population decimation, which in turn caused a global shift that shaped the 17th-century world.

“The English polymath Francis Bacon in 1620 selected for special notice three ‘mechanical discoveries’ that, in his view, ‘have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world.’ […] The third discovery was gunpowder.”

Brook notes how the invention of gunpowder changed the face of trade and human interaction. With gunpowder, people could force trade and interconnectedness upon others.

“The lure of China's wealth haunted the 17th-century world.”

Much of Vermeer’s Hat focuses on the European obsession with finding a route to China in the 17th century. Much of the enterprise springing up at the time was a result of this drive.

“The age of discovery was largely over, the age of imperialism yet to come. The 17th century was the age of improvisation.”

This quote links back to the first quote in that people coming together meant trying to understand one another. People often had to make do, and thus pidgin languages and other “improvisations” were made to connect.

“Buddhism uses a similar image to describe the interconnectedness of all phenomena. It is called Indra's net.”

Brook uses a Buddhist concept to highlight how the world is like a web connected by all the different strands. Indra’s net also has pearls at each intersection, and these work as points of knowledge, meaning that the world itself is a conduit of information from past and present.

“For the first time, freedom of trade is declared a principle of international law, and it has been of the international order ever since.”

When the Dutch decided to challenge Portuguese might, their interests shaped maritime law, a law that is still viewed as inalienable to this day.

“Once VOC ships started delivering their ceramic loads more regularly in the 1610s, Chinese dishes did more than decorate tables, fill sideboards, and perch atop wardrobes: they appeared on Dutch canvases.”

Brook shows the natural progression from trade and demand to art and desire, thus reversing the saying that “life imitates art.”

“By the middle of the 17th century, a Dutch house was a house decorated with China. Art followed life, and painters put Chinese dishes into domestic scenes to lend a touch of class as well as a patina of reality.”

The Dutch were at the forefront of acquiring Chinese porcelain and creating imitations, which is why present-day viewers can see porcelain in Vermeer’s paintings.

“The things engaged the eye, but the information engaged the mind, and the great minds of Vermeer’s generation were absorbing it all and learning to see the world in new ways.”

Art and cultural artifacts were pretty in themselves, but they also piqued the interest of knowledgeable people who wanted to know the people and places from which these artifacts came.

“European ships may have dominated the sea-lanes of the 17th century, but Europeans were only ever in a minority on board.”

Brook explains how diversity was a large and important component of 17th-century globalization and the movement of people.

“The two impulses [of scholars and merchants]—knowledge and acquisition—worked together.”

Brook again shows how art and cultural relics were not viewed simply for their beauty but for their use as an inroad to other cultures and places in the world.

“Transculturation: the process by which habits and things move from one culture to another so thoroughly that they become part of it and in turn change the culture which they have moved.”

Transculturation played a large part in bringing cultures together in the 17th century. Many customs, such as smoking, changed entire cultures and belief practices when introduced.

“Together the three prime commodities of the age—silver, tobacco, and slaves to mine the first and harvest the second—set the foundation on which the long-term colonization of the Americas rested.”

History attests to the fact that labor from enslaved people, as well as the drive for commodities such as tobacco and silver, set the foundations for the Americas, for good and ill.

“Silver played an enormous role in the economy of this period, shaping the lives of all who were touched by it.”

Brook highlights how silver became so popular that even those who did not want to deal with silver were influenced by its use on a large and small scale.

“Silver was the perfect commodity that appeared at just the right time, linking regional economies into a web of interregional exchange that set the patterns for our own global predicaments.”

The way silver affected different nations and connected them, meaning that disaster in one part of the world affected other parts based on silver’s use globally, still has resonance in today’s global interdependency.

“So many drawn into the whirlpool of global movement never made it out alive. Even those who went by choice rather than by force often were not spared. The toll of the 17th century fell on both.”

Brook highlights the effects of movement on people in the 17th century. Many sought to travel for better opportunities, though even people who were not forced to move suffered at the hands of global movement.

“As a result, the seventeenth became the great century of shipwrecks. It was a simple matter of numbers.”

Shipwrecks largely influenced the affairs of 17th-century merchants and communities. It was viewed as one negative aspect of the ever-growing need for trade and travel. More trade meant more movement.

“The idea of a common humanity was emerging, and with it the possibility of a shared history.”

The more people came together and realized their similarities, the more people began realizing that they had much in common, more so than they initially believed. This helped in humanizing the “other.”

“The metaphors that have surfaced in traditions all over the world are needed now more than ever, if we are to persuade others, and even ourselves, to deal with the tasks that face us.”

Metaphors are additional ways of viewing life and its great themes. To better understand universal metaphors is to better understand the world and the various peoples that make up the world.

“If we can see that the history of any one place links us to all places, and ultimately to the history of the entire world, then there is no part of the past—no holocaust and no achievement—that is not our collective heritage.”

Brook notes that by seeing the connection between people from different backgrounds and walks of life, people can better understand that the good and bad events that plague history are shared by everyone through a shared historical connection.