Vermeer depicted the city from the southeast, with the Schie Canal in the foreground. Clouds drift past high above the city. A large dark cloud casts shadows on the water and the buildings in front. The roofs somewhat further away are lit by sunshine, which creates a feeling of great depth, since the light draws our eyes deep into the picture.

All motion has ceased; a sense of rest hangs over the scene. The boats are moored with lowered sails. A gentle breeze ruffles the surface of the water. Passers-by converse. The trees are in leaf, so it must be late spring or summer, and some time in the morning, because the sun is in the east.

There are not many paintings that mirror reality to this extent. It is as though we are looking out the window at the Delft of 350 years ago.

The location

The view depicted in this painting can be determined precisely with the help of 17th-century maps. We are standing near the Kolk, a triangular harbour at the southern edge of the city. The Kolk was the terminus of the Schie, the waterway running to Delftshaven on the Maas.

From left to right we see:
1. Brewery ‘De Papagaai’
2. Kethel Gate
3. Schiedam Gate
4. Tower of the New Church
5. Rotterdam Gate

That Vermeer bent reality to his will becomes apparent when we compare View of Delft with old depictions made from the same vantage point, such as a drawing of around 1700.

The buildings, in particular the gates, seem taller and narrower in the drawing. The profile of the town is also more jagged and the buildings have gaps between them. In Vermeer’s painting, the bridge between the two gates is straighter and longer, and the Rotterdam Gate and its twin towers project further into the water. In short, Vermeer emphasised the horizontal lines of the composition to create three horizontal bands: the water, the city and the sky.

Technical research has revealed, moreover, that Vermeer lengthened the reflection of the Rotterdam Gate in the water at a late stage, extending it downward to the bottom edge of the picture. The effect produced seems to anchor the townscape firmly on the shore in the foreground. Such subtle adjustments served to enhance the peace and equilibrium of the scene.

Ships

Three kinds of ships are seen in the Kolk: trekschuiten (passenger barges), smalschepen (narrow ships), wijdschepen (wide ships) and herring busses.

One barge is moored to the quay and four others to the side of the Rotterdam Gate. These horse-drawn barges maintained a strict schedule of passenger services between the various cities in Holland. Barges departed from the Kolk for such destinations as Rotterdam, Delftshaven and Schiedam.

Along the quay of the Schiedam Gate are sailing boats used to transport goods over inland waterways. The smaller boats on the left are presumably smalschepen (narrow ships), the larger vessel on the right most likely a wijdschip (wide ship). The two types were very similar, but the smalschepen could pass through some crucial locks too narrow for the wijdschepen.

On the far right are two herring busses: large sailing ships used for herring fishing at sea. These ships are probably undergoing repairs, since they mark the spot of Delft’s shipyard.

Technique: thin, rough, or dabbed

Vermeer’s inventiveness comes to the fore in his View of Delft. Each part of the picture reveals his striving to paint it in the most appropriate technique.

• Vermeer suggested the roughness of stone by mixing coarse grains of pigment into the paint. This produced a rough, uneven surface.

• The reflection in the water is thinly painted in brown-grey and grey-blue. The transitions were softened with a brush.

• The many small dabs of paint applied to the hull of the herring buss suggest the reflection of the glittering water.