
A Prelude to Vermeer Magazine — Issue No. 1
Like a beam of summer light that once drew us into a North-Sea gallery and changed the course of our lives, Vermeer Magazine now steps onto the world stage. Conceived by writers, painters and kindred spirits who refused to accept the silence, our publication is dedicated to championing contemporary realism in all its guises, with a special reverence for the spellbinding craft of hyper- and photorealist painting.
Our mission is disarmingly simple: to restore to realism the lustre it deserves, to place superbly crafted images—often exiled to the margins of the art world—back in the centre of cultural conversation, and to do so in clear, melodious prose. Twice a year we will traverse ateliers, archives and city streets, offering readers incisive essays, luminous portfolios and first-hand interviews that illuminate both the technique and the soul of representational art.
The inaugural issue sets the tone with an ensemble of artists as diverse as the movement itself: Paul Béliveau’s bibliophilic still-lifes, Charles Bell’s jewel-bright gumball machines, Tom Blackwell’s chrome-plated motor-cycles, Jhonie van Boeijen’s mischievous grocery hauls, the meditative graphite worlds of Paul Cadden, and many more—including a scholarly salute to Diego Velázquez, whose baroque mastery echoes through today’s realist ateliers.
Over the past hundred days we have counted down to this birth by sharing one masterpiece a day on our website and Instagram feed; the result is a living anthology that invites exploration long after the magazine reaches your hands. Yet we imagine Vermeer as more than a printed object: it is a conversation. We therefore welcome exhibition tips, essays and letters from readers who treasure “good, true and beautiful” painting as keenly as we do.
May this first issue be the threshold of a larger adventure—an invitation to pause before a canvas, marvel at the precision of a painted reflection, and feel anew that peculiar thrill when art shows us the world more vividly than the world shows itself. We look forward to sharing that wonder, page after page, with you.


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