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76 pages 2 hours read

Chasing Vermeer

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2004

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Important Quotes

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“‘It all depends on what we get interested in—or what gets interested in us,’ she had added, as if this was obvious.”


(Chapter 2, Page 6)

Ms. Hussey’s cryptic comment implies that the material world isn’t inert, but has an active intelligence that might take an interest in human affairs. This principle asserts itself in the seemingly random clues the children receive to track the missing painting.

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“What they were doing was real exploration, real thinking—not just finding out about what a bunch of dead, famous grown-ups believed. Ms. Hussey was cool.”


(Chapter 2, Page 7)

In this passage, Calder rejects theory in favor of exploration. Petra would agree with his view. Both children show a lively curiosity that responds well to Ms. Hussey’s unconventional teaching methods. The thief’s appeal echoes the children’s dismissal of received wisdom by encouraging the public to explore art for themselves.

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“Petra loved how Ms. Hussey listened carefully to the kids’ ideas and didn’t care about right and wrong answers. She was honest and unpredictable. She was close to perfect.”


(Chapter 2, Page 8)

Petra shares Calder’s positive perception of Ms. Hussey. She equates unpredictability with perfection. This is the opposite of how most people would define perfection, and Petra’s unconventional approach to life is the reason that she can solve the mystery of the missing Lady.

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“Calder’s grandmother had once told him that he breathed patterns the way other people breathed air.”


(Chapter 2, Page 9)

Like Petra, Calder is an eccentric. His pentominoes have trained him to interpret the world in terms of geometric patterns. Seeing the world in an unconventional way makes Calder a fitting partner for Petra in their investigation of the art theft.

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“This year was beginning to feel either like something was very right or very wrong—it was hard to tell which.”


(Chapter 3, Page 29)

Calder’s statement implies that the year to come will be both very right and very wrong. The author has riddled the book with paradoxes like this one. Randomness that represents order and coincidence that fulfills a plan are only two examples.

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“‘Lies and art … it’s an ancient problem. So if we work with art,’ she said slowly, ‘we’ll have to figure out something else first: What makes an object a piece of art?’”


(Chapter 4, Page 37)

Ms. Hussey’s question strikes at the heart of the novel’s theme of defining art. At many points in the book, the author challenges the reader to consider what constitutes art and who gets to make that determination.

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“Calder wondered what Picasso had meant. Was it that art wasn’t exactly the real world, but it said something real? He began thinking up other combinations of art, a lie, and the truth that made sense.”


(Chapter 4, Pages 37-38)

Calder is pondering Picasso’s theory that art is a lie. He approaches the thorny question by arranging the words, “art,” “lie,” and “truth” as if they were pentomino pieces. By doing so, he’s trying to make the concepts fit together like pieces of a puzzle. The passage also speaks to the novel’s interest in humanity’s understanding of reality, something that Fort instructs Petra to question.

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“How about: Art is the truth that tells a lie? Maybe all of life was about rearranging a few simple ideas.”


(Chapter 4, Page 38)

Calder once again uses geometric shapes as an analogy to help him understand the abstract concepts of art and truth. He then expands his speculation to encompass life. His theory echoes Fort’s philosophy that the universe is understood via a shower of frogs.

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“Depending on how you looked at things, your world could change completely. His thought was that most people bent over backward to fit everything that happened to them into something they could understand.”


(Chapter 5, Page 45)

Petra is considering Fort’s theories about the nature of reality. In agreeing with him, she unconsciously reveals how much she differs from the rest of the world. Her ability to take an alternate view of reality is what opens her up to the possibility of communicating with a painting.

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“This was a calm, deliberate world, a world where dreams were real and each syllable held the light like a pearl. It was a writer’s world—and Petra was inside it.”


(Chapter 5, Page 49)

Petra is describing her first vision of the Lady. By accepting that dreams are real, Petra allows her consciousness to merge with the world inside a Vermeer painting. She doesn’t censor this experience or try to make it fit within a context. Petra has moved beyond the conventional perception of reality.

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“Art, for him, was—something puzzling. Yes. Something that gave his mind a new idea to spin around. Something that gave him a fresh way of seeing things each time he looked at it.”


(Chapter 6, Page 51)

Calder contemplates his latest assignment to find an everyday piece of art. To do so, he needs to define what art means to him. The boy is going through the same exercise that the thief compels the rest of the world to experience—independent judgment.

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“Events that were purely accidental were beginning to feel like they fit together, but not in a way he understood or even knew how to think about. It was one thing if you were using a handful of plastic pieces to find solutions to a puzzle; it was another if you felt like you’d fallen inside a puzzle and couldn’t get out.”


(Chapter 10, Page 98)

Calder is beginning to understand the reality of the investigation he’s undertaken. The pentominoes represent an intellectual exercise. In contrast, art theft is a dangerous business. Calder has been pulled into the puzzle of the case in the same way that Petra has fallen into a Vermeer painting.

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“The greatest art belongs to the world. Do not be intimidated by the experts. Trust your instincts.”


(Chapter 11, Page 110)

Even though the thief’s motives are anything but pure, his statement to the public rings true. It reinforces the book’s theme that everyone has a right to define art in terms that are meaningful to the individual, even art thieves. Experts and pundits don’t get to decide art’s true value.

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“One thing was clear to the sixth graders: In spite of their discussions earlier in the year with Ms. Hussey, the letter as a form of communication was very much alive.”


(Chapter 13, Page 133)

At the beginning of the school year, Ms. Hussey declares that the letter is dead. Little does she know how important letters will be in solving a mystery. They take a variety of forms in the hands of a variety of people. The letter motif also appears in Vermeer’s work and is the title of his stolen painting. The letter is anything but dead in the world of this novel.

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“It was the first time that many ‘untrained’ people had felt that they could say something of value about a work of art, something that might make a difference. It was the first time that many people had realized how murky and changeable the waters of history can be.”


(Chapter 17, Page 172)

This quote makes a distinction between the received opinion of art experts and the validity of individual perspective. Most people assume that once an expert quantifies a painting’s worth, that value is unchangeable. Owing that another artist might have created Vermeer’s paintings causes the public to realize how uncertain history is.

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“People around the world had developed a comfort with great art that they had never had before. The theft was a gift.”


(Chapter 17, Page 173)

The theft of the Vermeer allows regular people to approach art directly; the opinion of experts no longer inhibits them. This fresh approach reinforces the idea that art is a living thing, having the capacity to communicate in new ways with its audience.

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“‘I see myself in the two of you. I’ve done many things in my life out of curiosity, and have regretted very few of them.’”


(Chapter 18, Page 182)

Mrs. Sharpe doesn’t find curiosity to be a bad trait. This runs contrary to the adage that curiosity killed the cat. If Petra and Calder hadn’t demonstrated curiosity about the odd experiences surrounding the Vermeer, they would not have recovered the painting.

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“How do we know that trees don’t talk deliberately with their branches, giving slow, intricate messages with an unnoticed vocabulary of shapes? Calder’s thinking was infectious.”


(Chapter 20, Page 202)

Petra begins to consider the world from Calder’s perspective. She ceases to see trees as random objects with no agenda of their own. Now that she knows the Lady is alive and communicating with her, she considers why not other soulless objects.

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“‘It’s a puzzle that hinges on twelves. There are the pentominoes, of course, and the fact that we’re both turning twelve on the twelfth day of the twelfth month, and I’ll bet there’s more about the painting or about Vermeer that works with twelves.’ ‘Calder, you’re either totally nuts or absolutely brilliant. Maybe both.’”


(Chapter 22, Page 215)

Calder has an epiphany about the prevalence of twelves, but it’s his willingness to apply that pattern to a different set of conditions that 

allows the children to find the painting’s hiding place. Petra’s comment indicates that most innovative thinking may first appear crazy.

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“The room was cavernous and lonely at night. Outside, students wandering back to their dormitories were talking and laughing. Petra and Calder felt separated from everyday life by a chasm of responsibility.”


(Chapter 22, Page 218)

Petra and Calder have charged themselves with the duty to find the missing painting. While this task might separate them from the common experience of most people, the gulf exists for a different reason. The children perceive reality in an entirely different way than their classmates and seeing puzzle pieces in everything you do is likely a little exhausting.

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“Hearing a stifled sob, Calder felt his eyes suddenly fill. At that moment, there were just the three of them in the world: the Lady, who was almost 350 years old, and the two children, who were almost twelve.”


(Chapter 22, Page 223)

The children’s ability to retrieve the lost painting separates them from the rest of the world. Because they process reality differently now, they exist in a magical dimension where paintings can talk. As such, Calder includes the Lady as a living member of their circle.

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“My lie is that I am only canvas and pigment. My truth is that I am alive. Some might call this your imagination, but it’s not. Art, as you know, is about ideas. I am as real as your blue china or the boy with the box or the girl who dreamed about me. I am very much here.”


(Chapter 24, Page 247)

The Lady has communicated these words to Mrs. Sharpe. They confirm Petra’s hunch that the picture has consciousness. The words also speak to the book’s theme that art is a dynamic principle that takes on a life of its own.

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“Suddenly Petra remembered picking up a leaf on Harper Avenue that fall, and being struck by the thought that yellow was the color of surprise.”


(Chapter 24, Page 248)

This quote refers to another random event that dovetails with the art theft. Vermeer’s paintings employ yellow as a dominant color, and his work is associated with the element of surprise in the novel. Petra is surprised to discover that his painting is alive. The world is surprised to learn that many of Vermeer’s paintings aren’t really his.

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“She reminded Calder and Petra that Charles Fort didn’t believe in coincidence. He felt things were often connected in ways that no one could yet explain in scientific terms.”


(Chapter 24, Page 249)

This quote brings the theme of oneness full circle when Mrs. Sharpe reminds the children of Fort’s theory. The copy of Lo! that started the entire quest in motion originally belonged to Mrs. Sharpe. Without the impetus provided by Fort’s theory, the children might have failed to see all the connections that led them to the lost painting.

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“Maybe the greatest ideas were quite simple. Or maybe certain experiences in life were made to fit together like pentominoes. Maybe the passage of time, even centuries, didn’t matter when something really important needed to be said.”


(Chapter 24, Page 249)

Calder and Petra are trying to explain the coincidences that led them to find the Lady. Each random event allowed them to identify a pattern, and each small pattern then connected to another. Ultimately, time and distance are immaterial if simple oneness is the underlying principle of the universe.

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