Jan Vermeer (1632-1675) : Vermeer was one of the great Dutch masters. He did not live a long life, and so there are only 35 of his works in the world today. He was a genre painter, generally painting women indoors, doing domestic work - the subject matter was not interesting. What was interesting was his use of color to depict light and shadow - subtle and brilliant, you could say that Vermeer was the first Impressionist in that regard.