of us will never lead. Our heroes have made outsized fortunes, appeared on gigantic screens

and demonstrated unique virtue and talent. Their achievements are both dazzling and continuously,

in the background, humiliating. In the late 1650s, the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer painted

a picture called The Little Street. Doing so was a quiet but momentous and revolutionary

act, with an impact that challenges our values to this day. Johannes Vermeer - Gezicht op

huizen in Delft, bekend als 'Het straatje' - Google Art Project.jpg It showed nothing

more outwardly impressive than an ordinary street in Vermeer's home town of Delft.

Someone was doing a little sewing; some kids were playing on the stoop, a woman was busy

in the yard. It is one of the greatest paintings in the world. Up to this point, the most prestigious

cultural works had emphasised the merits and value of aristocratic, military and religious

lives, that is, of lives filled with extraordinary moments and advantages. The great epic poets,

Homer and Virgil, had written of heroic warriors; Renaissance artists had produced magnificent

visions of saints and angels. And the routines of kings, queens and aristocrats were constantly

celebrated and held up for admiration on the most prestigious canvases. But Johannes Vermeer

went in another direction. He wanted to show us what could be appealing and honourable

about very different sorts of activities: keeping a house tidy, sweeping the yard, babysitting,

sewing or – as in his equally significant painting of a kitchen maid – preparing lunch.

Several younger Dutch contemporaries joined Vermeer's quiet revolution. One of them,

Pieter de Hooch, focused on almost random moments of the day, when nothing particular

is going on: a routine afternoon at home, coming back from the shops, perhaps with a

bag of vegetables. Maybe the people will be hanging out the washing later. Someone's

rigged up a little arbour by the back door; it could do with some mending at the weekend.

De Hooch was the first artist in the history of humanity to point out the charms of organising

a cupboard. He did one picture that depicted a rather well-off merchant's house, but

the thing that really interested him was the laundry basket and how the owner of the house

and her assistant are folding and putting away towels and bed sheets. This, de Hooch

seems to be telling us, is also the meaning of life, properly understood. Another of Vermeer's

follower, Caspar Netscher, admired people doing jobs that were often considered rather

boring and lowly: like lace-making, which was fiddly and not very well-paid. Netscher

couldn't himself alter what people earnt, but he was intent on changing how we might

feel about those on a modest salary. Although these artists are famous – their works are

in the greatest galleries and fetch enormous prices if they come up at auction – their

tentative revolution hasn't as yet properly succeeded. Today – in modern versions of

epic, aristocratic, or divine art – adverts and movies continually explain to us the appeal

of things like sports cars, tropical island holidays, fame, first-class air travel and

expansive limestone kitchens. The attractions are often perfectly real. But the cumulative

effect is to instill in us the idea that a good life is built around elements that almost

no one can afford. The conclusion we too easily draw is that our lives are close to worthless.

Vermeer, for his part, was insisting that ordinary life is heroic in its own way, because

ordinary-sounding things are very far from easy to manage. There is immense skill and

true nobility involved in bringing up a child to be reasonably independent and balanced;

maintaining a good-enough relationship with a partner over many years despite areas of

extreme difficulty; keeping a home in reasonable order; getting an early night; doing a not

very exciting or well-paid job responsibly and cheerfully; listening properly to another

person and, in general, not succumbing to madness or rage at the paradox and compromises

involved in being alive. Vermeer was not claiming that everything ordinary was invariably impressive.

He was merely directing us with grace to the idea that there are a host of things that

we too often ignore and that happen to be both ordinary and good. With extraordinary

talent, Vermeer was convincing us of an idea we should dare to hold on to in the face of

immense pressures to imagine that we should be living in more exalted ways: that there

is already much to appreciate and venerate in our lives when we learn to see them without

prejudice or self-hatred. If you liked this film, please subscribe to our channel and

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