On the Expansion of Time.

I love this painting. It is, in my opinion, the most fascinating piece Johannes Vermeer ever created. I say it because I have a somewhat touching personal connection because the former version of the work has been in my parents' lounge for decades. In the light of art, I suggest this because, like in no other painting by Vermeer, we are able to deeply relate to the scene in front of us. The noise of life seems to fall silent. By looking at the depicted moment, we immediately immerse in the inner world of the girl and also of ours. It is the world of the mind, of feeling, of love. This, is a piece that, in a most enchanting way, is telling us about the beautiful correlation of in- and outside, of deep inner sensibility, and the encounter with the world around us. 

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window
Johannes Vermeer, 1657 -  1659
Gemäldegalerie Dresden 

​Let’s start and have a look!

A heavy curtain of an iridescent green silky material is drawn aside and allows us a glimpse into a room with a girl that is reading a letter. We are so close to her, we could touch her and yet we cannot. We cannot because she is protected by a table decorated with a beautifully woven rug. It is like a barrier for we must not disturb this highly emotional moment of utter intimacy. The green curtain, very significant I think, is on our side auf the room. Only we can close it, the girl cannot. What does that mean? I’ll come back to the curtain later.

Look at the light. Softly does it come into the room, dances with the fabric of the rug, shines on the apples, touches the skin of the peaches. Light, in Vermeer’s works, is equal to playing with magic. Here, the light gets caught in the windowpane. It kisses the girl’s face and forehead. But look at the letter. Can you see how Vermeer, by playing with light, emphasises it and gives the letter all the presence? It is not the girl that is the painting’s most remarkable point. It is the letter. Light streams in through the window, pauses suddenly on the girl’s face, the hands, the letter, and finally on the wall. Everything in Vermeer’s work converges at the precious sheet of paper in the girl’s hands.
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The letter, you wonder? Yes. Masterfully used elements speak ever so smartly about that, too. The red curtain that is draped over the windowpane, look how the fabric is folded and where it points at? The glass pane of the window, can you see the topmost row of that distinctive pattern? The first full rhombus from the right of the frame at the edge of the red curtain, where does it point at? The untidily crumpled part of the carpet on the table and the bowl with fruits thus tilted, where do they point at? It is, again, the letter. However, Vermeer would not be Vermeer, if there weren’t some clever hints and mysteries for us to solve, am I right? Let’s go to the girl again for a moment to explain the importance of the letter. Is she not beautiful as she stands there? Her posture radiates pure calm, like time stands still. We cannot look away, can we? It is so good for us. Vermeer expands the time for us until we feel a calmness and also a sense of happiness ourselves. Please try it out, you will know what I mean. Back to the letter. We’re looking at a woman in profile, but her reflection in the window is nearly frontal. Is this an error by Vermeer? Had he painted the girl’s figure in a different position earlier on and forgot to change the face in the window? Art critics dismiss the discrepancy as a slight mistake, a negligence in the working process. This is wrong. It is wrong because we’re talking about Johannes Vermeer here. Nothing is just coincidence or unintentional with him. He changed the painting but did not retouch the reflection in the window. The image in the mirror is the true revelation about the content of the letter and the girl’s feelings about it. Only her face in the window with her eyes on the letter, the red nuances on her cheeks that we can see in the glass, show her deepest thoughts and how utterly affected she is. The reflection works as the extension of her emotional engagement with the words she’s just reading. In a time that did not know immediate communication nor fast messaging a letter was the greatest good between lovers. All these exquisite painterly refences Vermeer put into relation close the unbelievably charming circle around the letter. By the way, what else but the face in the window makes me think it is a love letter? The red nuances in the painting. There are similar red tones in the window curtain, in the carpet, in the fruits, in the face and hands of the girl. These same tones we do find in the Cupido on the wall. Love is everywhere in this painting. Really everywhere.

One more thing that is outstanding in this piece is the green curtain. I promised to come back to it. In the beginning of my exposé, I said that only we, the viewers, have access to the curtain. Vermeer painted many curtains, but no other work shows this significance. composing the curtain like this, Vermeer exactly adjusts the distance of us and the way we react to the scene. A differently painted curtain, a ‘normal’ curtain, would have resulted in a maybe more superficial observation. Like looking at the setting as if we were in a paly in theatre. But we are not in a theatre. We are not watching a drama. The most extraordinary thing about being forced into a space by Vermeer is not that our ability to be touched is restricted through a curtain as such, it is the opposite. Our ability to see and feel is very much heightened by the Vermeer’s elegant move of reversing his famous stylistic device, the curtain. The curtain is not loud; it is not commanding our attention. It is soft, protecting the girl and mark a subtle line that needs to be respected at all costs. And not only the girl is undisturbed, but we are as well. Rather magnetised than expelled are we pulled into the scene. The curtain discloses the moment and at the same time guards the girl and, in consequence, also us. Vermeer, again, expands time for both sides until we have found what we were looking for. Beautiful.