The Wall

The Wall

Memphis

Izaak Walton

New Jersey  

James 5:16
“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 'Study to be quiet'; ten years before Vermeer's interiors were painted Izaak Walton had inscribed these words on the title page of THE COMPLEAT ANGLER.

 

 

 

 

 A note on the phrase itself

“Study to be quiet” is from 1 Thessalonians 4:11 in the King James Bible.

Walton famously wrote it on the title page of The Compleat Angler (1653), and Clifton‑Taylor draws a beautiful line from that biblical‑pastoral ideal to Vermeer’s serene interiors of the 1660s.

Writers on Vermeer often point to the extraordinary stillness that fills his domestic interiors, a quiet so complete it feels almost devotional. Alec Clifton‑Taylor once traced this atmosphere back to an older English source. He noted that the phrase “Study to be quiet” — taken from the King James Bible — had been written by Izaak Walton on the title page of The Compleat Angler a decade before Vermeer painted his most serene rooms. For Clifton‑Taylor, Walton’s gentle admonition captured the spirit of an age that valued inward calm, and he suggested that Vermeer’s paintings give visual form to that same ideal: a world where silence, order, and contemplation become the very substance of art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "The Wall" "Memphis" "Izaak Walton" "New Jersey"