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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

A New Look at Vermeer

Mar 19, 2020 – Sept 20, 2021
1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA

The female subjects of Johannes Vermeer all share a shroud of mystery; they sit in their dust-mote settings, surounded by light that seems to be listening for stories untold. Vermeer mostly depicted middle-class women in his paintings, but each face posseses a profoundly different tone—a different narrative. Of the 34 paintings Vermeer left behind, five are at the Met, occupying Gallery 630. In Google’s new virtual-reality feature, see them as they are now, but in an empty room. —E.C.

Johannes Vermeer, “Study of a Young Woman,” ca. 1665–67. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, in memory of Theodore Rousseau Jr., 1979.