Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Vermeer: Master of Light (COMPLETE Documentary) [No Ads]

((Subtitles are complete but in process of being edited to be more readable - punctuation, keeping sentences whole, etc. - September 23rd, 2017))

Johannes Vermeer was a painter of light. He lived and worked in Delft in the

heart of the Netherlands but little else is known about this artist. Names of his

masters, the nature of his training, the period of his apprenticeship all remain

mysteries. He left no letters, sketches or drawings.

We know only of his genius. His paintings have intrigued and fascinated viewers

for centuries. The themes he chose to paint were those he encountered in daily life:

a girl reading a letter in the center of a sunlit room,

a figure at work,

a woman pouring milk,

a girl in a red hat her lips parted her eyes lit with expectation looking at us.

What is it that draws us in? Is it the poetry and power of the images?

The use of reflected light? The saturation of color the softness and yet brilliance of

the image? Or the sense of timelessness?

It's mystery and meaning the celebration of ordinary tasks and daily life filled

with quiet contemplation the frozen moment in time. Its intimacy and mood:

a room filled with inner thoughts.

Or is it simply the virtuosity of an extraordinary craftsman?

What is it that makes a Vermeer a Vermeer?

There's a greater sense of light I think in Vermeer's painting than there is in

anybody else's and the light bathes as a room it lights on the figures the

figures seemed to glow that some of them seem to have a light OMERS within

themselves and there is this brilliant brilliant use of light that nearly

always comes through a window which is on one side of the scene when the

fascinating things I noticed is that you never see the outside you never see a

tree through the window you only see the light coming through but it is this

light that is incredible his use of this light playing on the various textures

that he wants to portray which have all the different meanings the supreme

quality of Vermeer's light is it is the daylight effect the clear daylight

effect is extraordinary daylight permeates his shadows and you

see that so beautifully in the milkmaid as you look into that corner of the room

where there is a wonderful still life of some kitchen implements a brass pot and

a wicker basket you're seeing the whole thing but you know it is in shadow and

one of the most beautiful things in the pictures of wall and back over and the

gradations of light were the intense light on the right side of the picture

and those gradations go from the most intense light to a darker light but the

shadows are transparent there's always this clarity form the forms are never

lost there's another thing that's exciting about this picture

it begins I have a kind of pointillism and if you look down at the loaves of

bread you have those solid forms but in them here's the touches of light he's

broken his forms with these little points of light and he uses that so

effectively and he use it beautifully in the view of Delft those boats which are

in the lower right hand corner there those little little touches of light

which means that the light bounces on to these dark forms and its wondrous

to behold the woman the balance is one of those supreme examples of Vermeer is

an artist's light coming in through the window is gently luminous the whole

interior it's a sort of a soft deep rich light but it's wonderful to watch it

happens wonderful to watch it evolve and Vermeer's gives you the sense of light

spilling across the interior of that space it passes by that orange curtain

you can see how the light goes from behind that curtain hits the wall

directly the gray of the wall and then it passes through the thickest part of

the curtain and it's a deep dark shadow at that point and then as it hits the

edge of the curtain it creates a golden globe that links together the gray of

the wall and the deepest part of the shadow as it comes into the room and

then the light passes down illuminating the table then the gold and the pearls

on the table come across caught by the edge of the table and then your eye is

drawn by your hand as it rests on the table and you're brought back up to see

her face it's wonderful quiet gentle face with her downcast eyes as she looks

down at the balances she holds him a hand light draws you in and encompass

the full scope of the painting

harnessing light is central to the power of Vermeer he transformed paint into

light in the most brilliant and mesmerizing way

you

he seduces us very quickly Vermeer does there's a magical quality

to his work beautiful it's simple but that's very deceptive he's concentrating

all the time he adjusts reality if you look at the art of painting as an artist

in an easel we seem from the back and he's painting a woman and she really

represents history and there's a map in the background and the foreground is set

so beautifully with a great carpet and the wonderful chandelier all those

details are ravishing but where is the right leg of the easel if you follow it

down you see the top of it and you come down and you see the artist is seated on

a stool and his foot is forward but there's no length of easel so where is

that leg if you look in that area where his leg is forward and there are the two

legs of a stool if the leg of the easel came down there it would come found that

whole area so he's either hidden it behind those two legs of the stool or

he's eliminated completely and if there's ever proof that Vermeer is not

an ape of nature he he just doesn't paint what he sees he makes adjustments

his pictures are so calculated carefully you don't see the calculation but I

assure you he has calculated his effects he's concentrated there's tremendous

intelligence at work your artistic intelligence Mamiya designs his

paintings so brilliantly so carefully that every part of the painting every

drop of paint every line every nuance of color has a deliberate meaning the

meaning and the composition and meaning in the power

every part of the story whatever it is everything has a meaning one of the most

wonderful examples is the woman in blue reading a letter it's a single figure

who's standing in the corner of a room and she's holding this letter and you

can see the kind of emotional intensity of her experience because just what she

clasped her arms by her side but Vermeer locks that gesture into space by placing

those hands right over the very strong horizontal bar that's the bottom of the

map that hangs on a wall behind her so this horizontal bar at the bottom

creates this tense concentration on those hands so the result is that you

feel nothing can move light also enters into this equation while there are all

these beautiful shadows and subtle shadow effects throughout the painting

she casts no shadow by not casting a shadow he somehow separates her out from

time this sends a passage of time that one senses with shadows the moving of

shadows doesn't exist with her so it enhances that a whole sense of

permanence it's very hard with Vermeer to separate one thing from another

because they're also into woven interlocked

in the woman holding a balance another example

it looks as though she will never move it's in large part created by the

gesture of the hand holding the balance because that hand is locked in space by

being juxtaposed over the vertical and horizontal elements of the frame the

little finger is extended horizontally it just holds that hand in space and

then for me reinforces that visual juxtaposition with a perspective if

you'll follow the perspective lines go right back to that finger that extended

finger the perspective of the table of the mirror on the wall in front of her

all we see the tooth at one point so that vanishing point reinforces the

importance of that gesture and it's very interesting infamy all the way through

is clear to see how we uses perspective he places the vanishing point because

the vanishing point tells us where he wants the eye to go an explanation of

everything making having a really serious part of the composition he's in

the woman with the balance when I first examined that painting before the

cleaning the frame of the Last Judgement lying behind the woman was entirely

black in the X radiograph you could see the frame on the right side of the

painting behind the woman's head had two light lines coming down these light

lines show there was a density there a dense material which could have been

white LED or led to in yellow further examination showed that this

frame had been over painted by somebody not by Vermeer very much later and that

two gold lines actually they were bright yellow had been painted out and painted

with a dark grey when that over paint was removed if the composition came to

life because you got on the right hand side the two gold lines you got on the

left-hand side the light coming in and the gold yellow curtain and the right in

the center is the gold little bit of her dress and there are these three very

very important points creating the strength of this composition with her

holding the balance without the gold lines of the frame behind the

composition was just failing it just didn't have the tension and the meaning

that it now has and that is a very good example of how every little thing in

Vermeer's every little point every little mark has a meaning and has a

purpose nothing is left to chance

Vermeer's masterwork the music lesson clearly shows that nothing is left to

chance on the far side of a sunlit room a woman stands playing a virginal a man

in elegant dress watches her and listens intently both figures are quiet as

though the music were measured and restrained this is one of the most

refined of Vermeer's works he carefully calculated every aspect of its

composition the figures the musical instruments the mirror table tile

patches and chairs however realistically presented are

conceived as interlocking patterns of color and shape

ramírez placement of the vanishing point creates a dynamic and clear focus

it falls on the sunlit sleeve of the woman a halo of reflected light in color

emphasizes its importance we can actually see the hole in the canvas left

by the pin Vermeer used to construct the perspective of the painting the power of

this work grows out of Vermeer's use of linear perspective the sharply receding

wall on the left coupled with the pronounced orthogonals

of the window frame leads the eye quickly to the woman she becomes the

fulcrum around which the painting revolves Vermeer further compresses the

space by filling the right side of the scene with a large tapestry covered

table the angle of its receding edge transports us quickly back to the

vanishing point the floor also plays a significant role in the perspective

construction its strong diagonal pattern leads us directly to the woman

the interlocking series of rectangular shapes surrounding the woman adds visual

emphasis to her importance Vermeer creates a strong vertical focus by

placing the mirror directly above the lid of the virginal so that the bottom

edge of its frame is overlapped by the top edge of the lid by including the

woman's reflection in the mirror he underscores her significance within the

painting the placement of the man and his relationship to the woman was of

concern to Vermeer infrared analysis reveals that he first painted the man

further forward and leaning more toward the woman she likewise had a more active

stance her head twisted back in his direction

Vermeer subsequently altered the figures the woman now stands directly facing the

virginal scene from behind her face is hidden from the viewer but her image in

the mirror was left as originally painted he moved the man slightly

placing him in a more upright position these adjustments were subtle but

crucial Vermeer transformed the figures from active poses to statuesque ones

emphasizing the permanence of their relationship the effect brings them into

harmony with the carefully ordered space Vermeer uses color to strengthen the

focus the yellow white of the woman's blouse the golden color of the virginal

and matching reflected light on the back wall highlight the figures the red of

the woman's skirt and Vermeer's selective use of black on the mirror the

virginal the clothing of the two figures and the pattern of the floor help lock

our eye into place the combination of overall contrasting

colors patterns and shapes create major and minor accents focused on the theme

of the painting Vermeer preserves the privacy of the couple by creating an

intimate space through the arrangement of objects on the right the strategic

placement of the chairs and the bass viola on the floor locked the couple

into the background protecting their private communication and separating

them from us the forward position of the table and the placement of the painting

on the back wall reinforce their intimate space by placing a chair

directly between the table and the vanishing point

Vermeer interrupts the perspective line slowing down our immediate access to the

couple we are outside looking in

the white elegantly proportioned pitcher sitting on the table is central to the

composition of painting its form echoes the curve of the gentleman's arm and

it's color helps to link the foreground to the background the purity of this

form gives it an almost sacramental character symbolically reinforcing the

theme of comfort and harmony provided by love the mirror is one of Vermeer's

primary creative tools using the mirror Vermeer allows us to look down on the

woman a carpeted table and the tiled floor of the room the sensitivity with

which he has rendered the reflection is remarkable he set it back into the

mirror rather than placing it on the surface by painting the forms softer and

smaller and by depicting the distorted reflections along the mirrors beveled

edge Vermeer uses the mirror to give us another viewpoint of the woman revealing

her most inner thoughts by leaving the woman's original position in the mirror

gazing at the man he suspends that psychological moment forever

it is this poetic image in the mirror that draws us emotionally into the heart

of the painting premier manipulated the angle of the

mirror for that purpose here we see the tilt of the mirror as he painted it but

in order to actually see the scene the mirror reflects it would have to be

drastically tilted by more than 30 degrees

Vermeer manipulated reality to intensify the psychological power of the painting

understanding the potential of light is a primary aspect of Vermeer's genius

here we see the room as it most likely would have been lit given the clues the

painting provides Vermeer then selectively manipulates the light to

strengthen the focus he eliminated the shadows that should exist on the back

wall to create an evenly illuminated white surface providing a backdrop to

emphasize the silhouettes of the figures while Vermeer drastically reduced the

shadow at the top of the virginal to allow the upper wall to be gently bathed

in light he darkened the shadow at the base of

the window and distorted its angle on the wall these two divergent shadows

hold the virginal in place the upper shadow leading the eye to the corner of

the lid and the lower shadow drawing our eye to where the leg meets the floor

Vermeer manipulated the shadows beneath the virginal by placing them closer to

each other than they would really be giving them greater substance and

emphasizing the silhouetted shapes of the legs

he eliminated the shadow of the virginals body against the rear wall in

order to reinforce this effect Vermeer completes this masterpiece by inserting

his own presence showing the reflection of his easel in the top of the mirror he

reminds us that the artist is clearly present and in complete control he is

the master of what we see the little Street is one incredible painting it's

really the one I would most like to have at home is one of these paintings that

somehow brings you back to your childhood makes you remember what it was

like to be a kid to look out across the way and see life going on just like it

always had gone on you'd see the woman sitting there doing a little thing you

see the kids playing on the street you see the little maid in the back they've

been there time after time after time you know something very comforting about

this world it's a very contained world it's a few

of a street but you its what's interesting is you don't feel like you

need to go left or right you're very happy right there

you're very happy you don't want to go anyplace else from here somehow has

created a sense of a street and you don't want to walk down it you just want

to stay and look at this little world that he's given you and one of the

magical things one of the reasons that that happens is because of that red

shutter that red shutter says stop that red shadow says you've gone far enough

you don't have to go any further so that red shutter is really important to

blocking limiting the giving that sense of comfort in that world he's created to

the left of the door you see that there's not nearly enough space for the

shutters on the two windows to the left to completely open so Vermeer has

actually adjust to the architecture of the building widen the space between the

window on the far right and the door to allow that shutter to

open flat because he needed that red there he knew he needed that red flat

against the wall in order to complete that composition so there is a wonderful

example of color being used for compositional purposes he's a colorist

from the word go from the very beginning is a great colorist and what changes in

its color is from a warm tonality from reds and yellows to the yellow and blue

to the cool and then the silvery quality of his light and I don't think he

divorced the light from the color it's all of a piece he can get the sheen and

the texture in a magical way Vermeer does this repaint satin it really looks

like Santa crisp you can almost hear it in a pile of a rug or the bread the

crustiness of a bread the color is doing that or the water and a view of Delft

the viscous water the fabric or the color of the of the clouds and mind you

that fault in the view of Delft that sky is just unbelievable you know you say

that Vermeer copies nature and sense those clouds he organized those clouds

clouds aren't that way clouds don't stand still for landscape painter he has

to figure out how am I going to arrange them and he keep some horizontal so his

sense of the great vault and then of the heavens and it goes back to the horizon

and he's doing that always color his color is intense he can use one color

next door to door to another with the most brilliant intensity there's a great

example in the girl with a red hat where she is wearing this beautiful blue

costume and the highlights instead of being lighter blue which is

what you would expect a yellow which is opposite to blue and therefore creates

this shimmer and this is this nobody else does this it is

absolutely extraordinary and that painting is a brilliant display of color

she's sitting against this rich woven tapestry marvellous interweaving at

these shapes all of which are brilliantly placed not one has a little

thing out of place they all play a part in getting this fabulous sense of this

moment of this girl turning towards you catching the light on her face and in

her hat and it's a brilliant brilliant piece of observation and translation of

that into this painting when you're able to hold the girl the red hat in your

hands that is a very special feeling and in doing that you really sense the

artist at work there's a whole different relationship that you have at that time

little things that are hard to pick up in the gallery for example for Mary

gives this radiance of her vision with a little turquoise highlight that he puts

in your eye and this wonderful pink highlight in the mouth it's little

accents like that that just make it come alive and have this kind of vivid

quality Vermeer works in glazes very thin glazes and the Blues particular are

very thinly painted he uses natural ultramarine which is a wonderful pure

pigment he prepared that area of the the blue robe with a reddish-brown under

painting and that gives a certain warmth to the blue so when he paints it very

thinly you have this warm glow that comes to the background so it's not just

a cool blue it has this inner WAMP that ties it in to the red of the Hat and the

orange of the cheeks and sort of the whole humanity of the image comes across

through that means and he uses his material and his techniques to enhance

the the emotional and psychological qualities of his work

the girl with the red hat is a sensuous painting it is intimate and immediate

she communicates directly with us for Muir's use of colour drives the

emotional power of this painting he sets the figure against the muted tones of a

tapestry concentrating colour on the flame red of her hat and the lushness of

her blue robe

ramier established an ochre base for the background of the painting the soft

tones of the tapestry elegantly emerge from that color

the Lionhead finials defined the foreground and placed the figure in

space quick strong strokes suggest the basic contours and structure of the

heads

using reddish-brown color for the base of the robe ramier covered it with deep

blue to establish its form the brown bleeds through and the combination of

colors creates an extraordinary sense of warmth he applied a delicate blue glaze

to define the folds of the fabric his use of thinly painted glazes creates

depth and the addition of ice blue highlights provides a shimmering quality

The face is established first in shadow.

Vermeer used an opaque deep red orange paint as the underground for the Hat.

The red is an intensely warm and active color. It heightens the immediacy of the girls gaze.

A succession of semi-transparent strokes of light red

and orange creates the feathery appearance of the Hat.

Vermeer demonstrates his sensitivity to the effects of reflected light by

placing a dark purple hue on the underside of the Hat.

He subtly casts an orange-red reflection across the girl's face to accentuate the effect the red has on the viewer

He then uses green, the complementary color of red,

to create the shadows on the face enhancing both colors Vermeer paints the

cravat in a brilliant white after laying the white down he scraped away some of

the paint to create definition the white in the center of the composition cradles

the face and focuses attention on her expression Vermeer draws upon the power

of light to increase the intensity of the color and to animate the painting

adding soft and shimmering highlights that crystallized the form of the

finials yellow highlights to enhance the blue of

the robe and accentuate the quality of its color delicate strokes finishing the

texture and lushness of her hat and highlights on the earring nose and lips

to bring the face to life his crowning touches are the placement of the pink on

her lips the turquoise in her eye

Vermeer's extraordinary use of color encourages a dialogue between the viewer

and the girl and enhances the sense of poetry that flows throughout his

paintings

Oh

you

premier was trying to emulate effects that he would have seen an optical

device called a camera obscura some of those qualities of this immediacy of

looking out of this more momentary character of this painting may and in

fact be partially explained by the inspiration of the camera obscura I did

really paint from a camera obscura he certainly didn't copy the camera obscura

but it was a way of seeing was way enriching the way he saw that he then

would apply and create and adapt in paintings such as this

camera obscura means darkened chamber its images were seen as magical in the

17th century often described as nature's paintings it's process is simple when

the camera faces an image on the outside rays of light enter into the darkened

chamber through a convex lens on the front of the box projecting an inverted

and reversed image on the surface of the glass viewing window at the back of the

camera the image contains optical effects such as diffused or soft

highlights this is an actual black-and-white image of a lion head

finial as seen through a camera obscura the impact of this optical effect can

clearly be seen when we place it next to Vermeer's painted finial and the girl

with the red hat those finials are a marvelous example of what you will see

from a camera obscura they're slightly out of focus in a way and yet he's

managed that light on them in the most brilliant way the highlights are made by

building up layers of paint starting with an opaque layer then building

translucent layers one on top of another and finishing with little spots of

bright white light and those spots bright white light are intense and in

fact they remind me of the pearls that you see absorbed in infamy as paintings

where he does exactly the same thing where he puts this circle of translucent

white paint grayish white paint to create the roundness of the pearl than

this little blob of white paint in the center which creates the light is

exactly the same way that he paints the finials is it's quite extraordinary I

think the most magical moment perhaps that all of Vermeer's work is in the

lacemaker what a wonderful painting and you have

this woman this intent woman who's busy with her activity of lace making in the

foreground you have this thread spilling out of this cushion totally diffuse I

mean you cannot make out what these are this incredible unfocused quality of

these threads it's amazing and that is such a wonderful example of what one

would see in a camera focused closely on an individual you focus the image on the

face of the individual and the foreground then gets entirely out of

focus with Vermeer there's this marvelous softness where outlines are

soft every layer flows into one another so you get this fabulous sense this

poetic sense of light and movement whether it be on a tabletop whether it

be on a ball whether it be on a person's face everything is very very soft and

flowing from one layer into another there are no hard edges to look out of a

mirror through a microscope is an extraordinary experience because you see

all this flowing all these soft soft edges you wonder whether you're looking

at the edge of the finger or something else when you're looking at a woman's

hand so soft are they and he achieved this by painting wet in wet now this is

very simple he would put down one layer let's say over Paik paint while it was

still wet he would put another layer on top and because the underlying layer was

still wet they would meld together soften together the edges would just

blur a little bit and there would be this flowing of these edges so if you

have a number of layers one on top of the other doing this this is creating

this extraordinary sense of atmosphere in diffusion of light this marvelous

feeling of the form without having to describe every little fine detail and a

very good example of this is the little Street and Delft the house which has

this facade of a brick wall where if you look at it you think that every little

brick is being painted very distinctly absolutely not when you look at it it's

a texture which gives you the sense of all this brickwork not every little

brick and so he's creating this movement throughout the whole surface of the

painting by this technique of painting wet-in-wet

it's quite ingenious there's illusion of texture in Vermeer's work the most

extraordinary textural effects are probably in the view of Delft and I

think the view of Delft is really amazing because there's a view of this

city seen from across the waterway and across the harbor and yet it seems so

immediate so real there's something so intense about that view that it just

comes out at you and it's color with its light but it's really texture that is at

the core that and any does lots of different things to create this effect

in this painting one of the amazing things if you look at the roof lines the

different types of roofs the orange tile roofs on the left for

example have a kind of a bumpy character that he creates by having a sand layer

mixed with LED white underneath the paint so it's a lumpy base specific to

that area so he very consciously wanted to create the effect of texture three

dimensionally and then he puts on it the orange and little highlights on top of

little little dots on top of it then when it comes to the boats this

wonderful feeling of light flickering off the water onto the sides of the

boats that he does without any three-dimensional texture but with all

his handling of paint with these various diffused layers these little circles

these diffuse highlights and then the opaque highlights on top of very

interweaving of thin and thick and then thick it's different in different parts

of the painting but it's all to serve a certain effect

it's really interesting the photographing for me because everything

always seems out of focus it's one of these changes things and even restorers

have been bothered by this and this painting alone writing letters is a

wonderful example where when we brought it into restoration the arm was in fact

quite precise and definition and we discovered that in fact the restorer had

made a contour line along that arms to make it defined in space sort of losing

the whole quality of life that Vermeer is creating that is so unlike Philly and

Vermeer did not create hard edges they were all soft and this repaint was quite

clearly much later than Vermeer and having established that this paint was

false it was removed very easily with no damage to the underlying and there you

see this typical lovely soft edge to her arm as she leans rather she caresses the

table in the same way that she's caressing letters the letter which she's

writing is the most intimate quiet painting in fact I think it's the most

quiet soulful of all of his paintings it's as far as I'm concerned

part of the magic infirmary's to create more than he then he actually is put

down it could be the sense of more there than there is and that happens a lot

with color and color he uses colors so selectively and you feel this wonderful

yellow of her jacket but when you look at it carefully you see and in fact that

there's very little yellow there it's only in those highlights where the light

is hitting the form that he's actually using the lead tin yellow to give that

focus for the rest it's really done an okras it's very subtle very understated

and this is something that he does throughout his career it's it's this

suggestion of form suggestion of color suggestion of space done with the most

minimum means suggestion of narrative suggestion of emotional energy

the feeling of mood is is just the hints of these things so what happens then is

that we complete them he leaves lots of room for us to enter

into these things and for us to become part of the whole experience to create

it to fulfill it to finish it in our own individual ways Vermeer is a man of

great dignity and we see it in in his mature works in a beautiful way the

servants are as dignified as the mistress of the household and the

milkmaid is to me a masterwork and it's a serving woman that he's representing

there is that the dignity of humankind because it doesn't embrace all of him

but it's the dignity of women I love it and I love women but there is this

wonderful sense of his love of women which comes through on every occasion

none of his women are hard none of them are angry in any way they're all

concerned with fairly deadly occupation very gentle very warm occupations that

he seemed to enjoy to me one of the most moving pictures most poetic pictures by

Vermeer is a painting in Berlin of a woman putting on a necklace in that

gesture of a woman doing nothing but just about to clasp the pearl necklace

that's something no writer can know if you know you can only see a woman put on

a necklace but to have captured that moment at me it's one of those beautiful

things that Vermeer ever created it's the life of women that he's painting

men don't come in very often but women reading a letter we've been writing a

letter woman delivering a letter this quiet existence of women that's much of

the poetry of Vermeer

what makes a Vermeer Vermeer that's a very difficult question I've been

worrying about that question for about 60 years

for me it is that extraordinary quality that he has of inviting you in and

keeping you away that an enigmatic feeling that he creates he is telling

you a story and yet there's almost like a veil between you and the painting

there is not an immediacy between you and the painting although you're fooled

into thinking there is one something so personal about a Vermeer painting it's

one of these kinds of images that you really want to see all by yourself you

don't want to be interrupted you don't want to hear noises around you oh you

can't put it into words really just as you when you see a great baseball player

whose forms fabulous what makes them so great or there's great cook and you have

a great meal what makes it so great well you can talk a bit about it but there's

always something you can't put into words he raises these scenes of life

into something that is very very special how come that our milk may just pouring

milk into a jug can produce this moment of magic on a canvas this extraordinary

sense of light and moment in which you feel there's so much depth there is so

much more than just this simple domestic act and he raises up these these

pictures into this into this ethereal level which is very hard for us to

comprehend comprehend and he really is a genius

at making these seems quite magical in quite mysterious at the same time it's

so universal something about that image that is meaningful to all of humanity

there's truths the underlying truth if they're fundamental truths about human

existence they're our sense of harmony of life relationship of man and nature

the joy of life the sense of of possibility in such an understated and

subtle way that's

you just come back to it over and over again and just feel enriched by the experience.

What makes a Vermeer of Vermeer? Perhaps there is no single answer

but rather it is a combination of answers which is different for each and every one of us.

This is at the very heart of what seeing is all about.