Israelcraft

Chapter 11 Johannes Vermeer’s First Commission

These days, if you do anything extraordinary, someone is likely to catch it on video and within seconds you can become the flavor of the week to a whole bunch of mobile phone holders all around the world. As it turns out, two people caught Johannes in flight on video.
One was one of the bird watchers who was aiming his mobile higher up to film two osprey hawks above the upper deck fighting in flight over a fish one had caught. He had turned his video camera on early and caught Johannes in flight before he corrected his angle farther skyward to film the ospreys. He hadn’t actually seen Johannes in flight. He saw what he had captured on film only that evening when he reviewed the video in the comfort of his own home.
The other was one of the hikers who had a blog featuring river trips, and was filming the boat deck and surroundings for his viewers as Johannes descended. So his blog followers saw it in live time. And shared it; and so on.
And there was another eyewitness.
At the moment of his descent, Angelina Timberland was counting the stairs, wondering if it would be too much trouble taking the children to the upper deck later on.
Angelina was a national gymnastics champion and that masterful descent stopped her in her tracks. She had already noticed Johannes who looked like a Renaissance painter; in vintage clothing and artist’s beret. When she saw him heading to the refreshment table for a bottle of water, she felt thirsty herself.
She made small talk with him as they drank, keeping an eagle eye on her charges. By this time they were building an unwieldy structure out of multi colored square boxes that fit onto one another. She excused herself for having to watch the children, explaining that with these little ones, things can go south in a matter of seconds. She asked him something that prompted him to speak of the drawings he had made by the stream. She asked to see them, so he fetched his shoulder bag from the upper deck, climbing the stairs three at a time going up, and, on his return, taking them one by one, like most ordinary mortals.
When Angelina saw what he had drawn, she asked him if he also drew people, to which he said, yes, for sure. Then she asked if he had any larger sheets to draw on, because the notebook Johannes had shown her was only a hand span across. In answer, he pulled out one of the unused folio sheets from his shoulder bag. 
She was hatching a plan.  She was responsible for trip expenses and had been given $50 for that purpose. She had expected a group fare for the boat tour to come to something less than that, and was delighted to find out that the boat tour was compliments of the house. So, with this unexpected windfall, she wanted to commission a drawing of the children in front of the structure they were constructing. It would be framed and displayed on the wall of the kindergarten classroom; in the spot that had been occupied until recently by a group photo of the former kindergarten class.

The kindergartners completed their cumbersome structure while Angelina struck a bargain with Johannes.
Then she organized the children by height in two rows; the upper row standing, with the tallest kindergartener upper row center, and the ones below, sitting cross-legged. Lastly, Angelina and the other kindergarten teacher took their places, one standing at each end of the line.
All ready, Angelina announced they were having a contest to see who could be still like a statue for five minutes. She looked at her watch and said “go”.
Now they were all quiet and still, and Johannes was ready; sitting facing them on a stool with his pointed drawing stick and eraser, and folio sheet on the drawing board in front of him.
He knew that if he didn’t move quickly, the children would tire of being statues before he was finished capturing them on paper.
In three or four strokes the structure was outlined, filling most of the page. Then he made a light horizontal oval to indicate for himself where the children were in relation to the structure. Next he made two faint vertical ovals at each end of the horizontal oval to indicate where the teachers were standing. He would save drawing them until after he was done with the children.
Then in perhaps twelve touches of drawing point to paper per child, he sketched out their placement in the group and their general outlines. Next he went child by child left to right, one at a time, on the folio sheet, adding some more detail, continuing to move rapidly. He repeated this process three times, left to right, each round adding more detail. Within five minutes, which is a long time for a kindergartener to play statue, he had enough detail to let the children go. But before he did, he told them he would need each one of them to sit for him for a minute or two to finish their faces; and asked them to start doing that in the order they were standing and sitting, left to right: standing first, sitting next. Only the part about starting with the child on the far left had to be explained and repeated by Angelina. The first child, who had been standing on the far left, sat down in a chair in front of Johannes and smiled.

The last child, who had been seated on the far right of the commissioned composition, sat down in front of Johannes. She was quite impatient, having had to wait to the very end. She wasn’t intimidated by the artist facing her. On the contrary, she was fascinated by him. But she had to go to the toilet and had been afraid to speak up and ask to be excused, as all the children who had finished sitting for Johannes, and all the other passengers, and the captain, had found places where they could get a view, and were concentrating on Johannes drawing.
She crossed her legs tightly and smiled at him. Luckily, there wasn’t much touching up to do, and Johannes freed her before she burst. Angelina had pointed out the location of the toilets. The moment he did release her, she leapt up and made a beeline for it. 
Now Johannes drew each kindergarten teacher, completed the structure behind the children, added a few final touches here and there; and signed his name:

Each kindergartner got an ice cream bar after their lunch for holding still as a statue for five minutes.