76 pages • 2 hours read
Chasing Vermeer
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The Oneness of All Things
A central theme in Chasing Vermeer is that connections exist everywhere. This concept first appears in Charles Fort’s odd book, Lo! Fort has devoted his life to studying what other people might call coincidences. Instead, Fort sees these occurrences as interlocking puzzle pieces. He’s collected stories about rainstorms of living things, especially frogs, under the assumption that one such odd event is only a link in a larger, unseen chain. He writes:
Wise men have tried other ways. They have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin (42).
Not only does Fort posit the theory of connection, a copy of his book physically acts as a connection point to link together all of the major characters; Petra sees Mr. Watch drop Fort’s book into the giveaway box outside Powell’s. She takes it, reads it, and shares it with Calder. The two children form a bond over the book. When Petra later learns that the book’s original owner was Mrs. Sharpe, Calder goes to the old woman’s house to question her. While there, he finds a connection between his Geographer’s box and a Vermeer painting.
All these connections function like a trail of breadcrumbs, leading the children inevitably to find the missing Lady. Fort’s observation about the underlying oneness of all things applies to the Vermeer mystery as well. Therefore, Calder observes that if he’d simply investigated Tommy’s missing Frog, all the seemingly disparate clues would still have led back to the stolen Vermeer.
Perceiving Patterns
The book’s second major theme is closely related to the first. Although there may be an underlying oneness to all things, not everyone notices it. The ability to perceive patterns is a rare gift that both Petra and Calder possess. Rather than looking at a series of isolated events, the children weave a coherent narrative out of what most people would call coincidences.
Calder’s pentominoes demonstrate his ability to create meaning out of patterns. He uses the geometric shapes in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes. They speak to him and help him to locate the hiding place of the missing painting.
Just as Calder’s pentominoes provide a springboard for perceiving connections, Petra uses Fort’s book to make her own connections. For example, details in Fort’s book, lead her to a vision of A Lady Writing. Unlike Calder’s fixation on numbers, Petra demonstrates a fixation on the written word. Her interest leads her to focus on a woman writing in a painting and is why the Lady, a writer, chooses to communicate with her. Each child takes a different route to perceive patterns, but both arrive at the same destination.
At the end of the book, Mrs. Sharpe articulates how the ability to perceive patterns allowed Petra and Calder to outwit a master criminal:
‘I am sharing this with you just to show you what I am beginning to see: Something much more powerful than any one of us has pulled us all together. Although Xavier Glitts thought he was in control, he was just a piece of the picture, if you’ll pardon the pun. Something managed to communicate with each of us, including the thief, each in a way that we were willing to hear or see’ (247-48).
Defining Art
Ms. Hussey is the catalyst for an exploration of the book’s third theme—defining art. She gives her students the assignment of finding an everyday object at home that feels like a work of art to them. This task leads Petra to question the very definition of art:
What made an invented object special? Why were some manmade things pleasing and others not? Why wasn’t a regular mixing bowl or a spoon or a lightbulb a piece of art? What made certain objects land in museums and others in the trash? (40).
Petra concludes that most people don’t define art for themselves. They simply accept the value of an object because someone in authority has defined it for them.
Ms. Hussey’s humble homework assignment feeds into a similar controversy created by the missing Vermeer. Once the thief publicly questions the provenance of many of Vermeer’s paintings, ordinary people are given the chance to decide for themselves which of the artist’s works are genuine masterpieces and which are not.
Aside from the provenance issue, the book also examines the larger question of the function of art. Ms. Hussey offers an intriguing definition when she tells the class, “Picasso said that art is a lie, but a lie that tells the truth” (37). Art’s ability to symbolically capture the deeper truths of human experience can only be determined by the individual. Far from accepting the opinions of art experts, everyone is encouraged to look at a work of art and discover whether it holds any truth for them.
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