Thanks to recent research<\/a>, it has become increasingly clear that women played a large role in acquiring paintings in the 17th-century Netherlands, which partly explains their predominance in Vermeer\u2019s work. Two of these painting were particular favorites of the artist\u2019s wife, Catherine Bolnes, who attempted to keep them after his death but was obliged to sell them to feed her many children. They were perhaps a reminder of different days, of youth and flirtation, and the agency afforded to women in the written word.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tJohannes Vermeer, \u201cThe Love Letter\u201d (c. 1669\u201370), oil on canvas; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, purchased with the\u00a0support of the Vereniging Rembrandt (press image courtesy the Frick Collection)\t\t\t<\/p>\n Looking at the three paintings together, it\u2019s apparent why the exhibition designers chose to offset the displays from one another: to discourage viewers from bringing strings and pins to create their own crazy walls<\/a>, tying together shared details and highlighting important differences across the works. For instance, the lap. In the Rijksmuseum painting, \u201cThe Love Letter\u201d (c. 1669\u201370), the woman has been interrupted playing a cittern, a lute-like guitar then associated, like all such instruments, with love and female genitalia<\/a>. Meanwhile, in the Frick painting, \u201cMistress and Maid\u201d (c. 1664\u201367), the subject\u2019s buttery satin yellow dress is trimmed with a vermillion ribbon that lies, not coincidentally, between the fur trim of her jacket lapels, only to be cooled in the oceanic folds of the tablecloth in front of her. In the National Gallery of Ireland canvas, \u201cWoman Writing a Letter with Her Maid\u201d (c. 1670\u201372) \u2014 the only one of the three in which the sitter is actively writing \u2014 her lap is taken over by the table, that venue of intellectual productivity and creation.\u00a0<\/p>\n For another, the maid. Maids and servants in literature of this period were often treated broadly and as comic relief. The maid in \u201cThe Love Letter\u201d is the closest to this type \u2014 with one arm on her hip, she smiles down on her employer, who appears anxious and uncertain. The one in \u201cMistress and Maid\u201d obtains the greatest significance. Her cheeks pink with importance, she interrupts her employer, in the midst of writing one letter, to offer her another. This confusing state of affairs brings the lady\u2019s hand up to her chin in a gesture of consternation. Is the new letter from a different suitor? In \u201cWoman Writing a Letter,\u201d the maid, on standby, smiles and looks out the window, allowed a rare moment of interiority.<\/p>\n Lastly, the foreground. Vermeer positions the viewer in \u201cThe Love Letter\u201d as if looking into the scene from an adjacent darkened room. The doorway of the viewer\u2019s room frames the painting\u2019s two subjects; as a result, the space on either side of the door divides the composition in three. On the right is a chair piled with rumpled musical scores. On the left is what appears to be a utility cabinet, stained and smeary, its sharply receding perspective tipping the viewer into the colorful sparkle of the central view. Our gaze stumbles over a broom and a pair of shoes just outside the door.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tJohannes Vermeer, \u201cMistress and Maid\u201d (c. 1664\u201367), oil on canvas; The Frick Collection, New York (\u00a9 The Frick Collection, photo Joseph Coscia Jr.)<\/p>\n No such obstruction is found in \u201cMistress and Maid,\u201d which positions us as if seated near the table. Despite their proximity to us, the women seem barely material, their edges dissolving into the black background. \u201cWoman Writing a Letter\u201d presents the women without the obstruction of the Rijksmuseum canvas but deeper in the space than those in the Frick\u2019s. On our side of the table is a blue chair, pulled out as if just abandoned. A sheet of paper, anchored by the inkwell, drapes over the edge of the table into our view, inscribed with Vermeer\u2019s signature. We can sense the artist in the empty chair.<\/p>\n There is much more to consider: The paintings in the background, the different effects of light, the gestures, and the decorative textiles, weighty and nearly animate. To make comparisons outside of the three paintings displayed, the exhibition is accompanied by a handsomely illustrated catalog by the scholar Robert Fucci, which elaborates on the topics of letters, maids, and courtship in the Dutch Republic.<\/p>\n Is the Frick innovating the ideal exhibition format for our new shortened attention span? Perhaps it will help us to better engage with art. Leo Steinberg, art historian and observer extraordinaire, used to recount how he learned how to look at art during the London Blitz of World War II, when the National Gallery of Art would display a single painting<\/a>, returning it to storage each night. Maybe shows such as this can help us learn to look again. And then write someone a letter about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Penrhos_Feilw_Standing_Stones%23\/media\/File:Penrhos_Feilw_-_geograph.org.uk_-_216.jpg\")
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