Vermeer’s HatOR, HOW A WORK OF ART CAN OPEN WINDOWS INTO THE PAST…..OR HOW WE CAN LEARN HISTORICAL S IGNIF ICANCE….OR HOW WE CAN UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE…OR HOW A SWAG L ID CAN DEMONSTRATE HISTORICAL CONTEXT. . .OR HOW WE CAN WASTE T IME WITH ANOTHER POWER POINT….

Officer with Laughing GirlWhat do you see?

Delft, in the Netherlands, in the 17th Century Vermeer was a 17th century Dutch artist from the port town of Delft. So how

does an artist fit into the study of European exploration and

Westernization? In many ways, the Dutch represent an

interesting case study in the Age of Exploration. They were a

small state, only recently freed from the control of the

Spanish crown and Philip II (remember all that stuff about

the counter-reformation and the Netherlands and the Duke

of Alba and Philip II of Spain?), but they managed to create a

global trading empire that stretched around the world and

established many of the corporate practices still seen today.

Officer with a Laughing Girl First, lets look at Vermeer’s painting (or, what’s referred to as Vermeer’s Hat in the title….)

This is an interesting and dynamic work of art, and

not just because of its relationship to our course.

Vermeer uses quite a few artistic devices to draw

the viewer in, but the painting also allows us to make

conclusions about the era and provides us with

historical significance.

The hat, the window, the map, even the walls may have

relevance to this unit…

The hat… Let’s look at the hat first…

The hat is made of felt, (felt’s a fabric made by treating and working natural fibres until

they matted together) Felt can be made from all sorts of fibres but felt made from

beaver pelts was most popular for making hats

because it was warm and it shed water. The problem for Europeans was that

they had practically exterminated all the beavers in Europe. As a result most Europeans

began to wear cheap felt hats made from inferior plant

and animal fibres. When Europeans stumbled upon the

North American beaver in the “New” World they suddenly

had a new source for good felt hats. These hats were very

expensive though and became a source of social status.

The bigger the hat the higher the social status.

Champlain in North America The influx of quality beaver pelts into Europe was largely the result of European contact with North American natives. Samuel de Champlain first visited North America in 1603. His goal was to find a route through the continent to the “Western sea” and on to China, (he even named a section of rapids in Quebec “Lachine” or “China”). Champlain quickly made allies of the local natives, the Montagnais and the Algonquin and Huron. He promised to help them in their struggle against the aggressive Iroquois tribe if they could assist him in his search to find a water route through the continent. To finance his search, he depended on securing furs to export to the rapidly growing European beaver felt market. At first he depended on the local natives but soon had an army of Frenchmen – the “couriers du bois” (or runners of the woods) to supply the market.

Champlain, commerce and exploration lead to native

conflict In 1608, Champlain travelled with Huron and Montagnais allies to what is now lake Champlain. There, he was confronted by an Iroquois war party of about 100 warriors. Champlain and two of his French compatriots were armed with arquebuses – the early form of firearm that had been in use in Europe for about 75 years. Without waiting for the Iroquois to make a move, Champlain fired his gun at a group of 3 Iroquois chiefs killing two

of them instantly and mortally wounding the third.

When his two men fired their guns from concealed

positions the Iroquois warriors turned and fled. In an

instant, European commerce and European

Technology changed the balance of power between the

Native population in North America. The incident

would lead to continued conflict between the Iroquois

and the other native groups would result in the Huron being

reduced to a shadow of their former tribal significance.

The Dutch East India CompanyWhile natives in the New World were being slaughtered, and beaver pelts were making their way across the Atlantic to adorn the heads of socially conscious middle-class Europeans, the Dutch were establishing a world trading corporation. The Dutch East India Company was the first joint company to issue stock. It was given a 200 year monopoly in trade with Asia by the government of the Netherlands. It had the power to negotiate treaties with foreign states,

mint its own coins, arrest, try and execute people, and wage war.

It was the world’s first true multi-national corporation and established

many of the patterns of European trade. From 1602 to 1796

(when the company went

bankrupt), they sent over a million Europeans to the East on almost 5000

ships and brought many millions of tons of Asian goods to Europe. Britain’s East India Company (their closest competitor) might be more famous today, but they moved half as many people on half the ships and moved less than half the goods. The company declined due to corruption in the last years of the 18th century and finally went bankrupt, the company’s land holdings eventually became the Republic of Indonesia. The company’s main headquarters was in Delft, Vermeer’s hometown.

The Dutch East India Company The company eventually established a trade network with the “far East” and helped in the process of “trans-culturation” – the process of merging and converging cultures.

The company originally was interested in shipping Eastern spices and fabrics (like silks) to Europe. (When Champlain returned to France for a few years in the 1610’s he left his adopted son Etiene Brule to represent him with the natives of New France. Brule kept a luxurious silk coat - imported from China and extremely rare - with him to impress the locals) Within several decades, Chinese pottery became one of the company’s most valuable imports. At first, “china”, as it came to be known, was too expensive for most people to buy, but as more was imported prices fell and it became common among the middle classes. Chinese potters even placed the Dutch East India Company logo on pottery intended for export. Eventually, Dutch potters mimicked the Chinese pottery and began to produce their own version in blue and white called “Delft” or “Delftware”.

Transculturation and Luxury Goods Ironically, the goods shipped around the world that established modern trade patterns and sped the process of transculturation were not the necessities of life but luxury items.

We’ve already seen how North American beaver pelts helped to fund Champlain’s attempts to find a route to China and created a European fashion craze. And today people still often call pottery “china”. One other unnecessary luxury product to make the rounds and influence incredible change was the friendly wonder weed of the North American natives – tobacco. By the mid Seventeenth century, people were smoking tobacco not only in Europe but in India and China. Many leaders believed the product was dangerous and tried to ban it but to no avail. Soon, people were “smoking their brains out” around the world and tobacco had become a cash crop.

Transculturation By the end of the 17 th century, products that had been completely unknown were travelling around the world, and entire economies were being altered by them.

Not only that, but entire peoples were being altered by them. In the Americas, the move to grow more and more tobacco and cotton led to demands for more and more plantations and more and more workers. The Atlantic slave trade exploded with the advent of world trade patterns and the sale of luxury items to a new middle class that was eager to display their wealth and their worldliness with extravagant purchases….

As for Vermeer, he died young and near to poverty. He would only gain fame long after his death. Many of his works shed light not only on his remarkable abilities but also on an era of unprecedented change when the world would become truly connected for the first time. It was a world that would never be the same….