
View of Delft
1660 · Mauritshuis, The Hague
Vermeer painted his own city from across the harbor, almost his only townscape. Proust called it the most beautiful painting in the world.
★ 9.3

Vermeer painted his own city from across the harbor, almost his only townscape. Proust called it the most beautiful painting in the world.

A kitchen maid pours a thin stream of milk in ordinary daylight, given the weight and stillness usually reserved for saints.

The officer's hat and back loom enormous in the foreground while the girl sits small and bright beyond, which is exactly how the eye works.

No landscape, no story, just a man in patched brown wool holding a skull and one shaft of light finding him in the dark.