The Little Street 1660

Johannes Vermeer painted "The Little Street" in the mid-17th century using oil on canvas. The material itself—oil paint—is key to understanding the image. Think about how Vermeer builds up layers to capture the textures of the brick, the mortar, the window frames. Consider how those bricks came to be, likely molded from clay and fired in kilns. These were essential to the construction of Delft as an urban environment. Vermeer shows us a slice of life inseparable from the buildings around it. A woman sews, children play on the stoop. The reality of 17th-century Delft was that bricks came from somewhere. The laborers who dug clay, molded, and fired the bricks are absent here, but their labor is embedded within the artwork. This is not just a charming street scene. It is a record of everyday materials transformed through labor into the built environment, and then immortalized in paint.