Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Everyman


Little did I realize as I wandered through the Old Church in Delft that I would find the burial site of Johannes Vermeer.   His compatriot Rembrandt was also buried in a church in Amsterdam, but his final resting place is unknown.  The Wikipedia entry states that Rembrandt "was buried as a poor man in an unknown grave in the Westerkerk.  It was in a numbered 'kerkgraf' (grave owned by the church) somewhere under a tombstone in the church.  After twenty years, his remains were taken away and destroyed, as was customary with the remains of poor people at the time."

So, the extraordinary painter of humanity became, in a sense, everyman.

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