Interest in the tronie, the old Dutch word for ‘face’ surged in the 17th century, when artists like Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer ( Girl with a Red Hat) poured their talent into painting the human face.

Vermeer Exhibitions - Essential Vermeer Vermeer Exhibitions - Essential Vermeer

At last it can be seen with the Met’s Young Woman With a Lute, Washington’s Lady Writing, Berlin’s Woman With a Pearl Necklace, and the Rijksmuseum’s own Love Letter, whose female models all wear that same yellow-and-white coat. The removal of this varnish resulted in the subtle, cool colours of Vermeer’s original painting being rediscovered. You will see ultramarine in almost all of his paintings, on clothes but also on tablecloths, cushions and curtains – it draws the eye like a magnet, it always impresses. Because of the location of that wall, the window on the right is slightly narrower than the window on the left. The show is superbly dramatic: a sequence of darkened chambers, where the paintings (like their subjects) appear sometimes alone, occasionally in twos or threes, each in its solo spotlight.

More than 60 artworks will be exhibited, including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative arts.

Vermeer : Johannes Vermeer (artist), : 9780500026724 Vermeer : Johannes Vermeer (artist), : 9780500026724

The curators have also chosen a ‘less is more’ approach to the interpretation of Vermeer and his work. How does it feel to temporarily have such an entire collection of those unique, very expensive, spectacular paintings by that one world-famous Dutch master under your care? But, above all, for the Society of Jesus, studies on optics were an integral part of religious education: God is light and the mirror reflects the universe. The color that dominates and impresses with its vibrancy even if it has faded in some paintings is the ultramarine which, while other painters used sparingly, Vermeer loved it. Opening the magnificent Johannes Vermeer exhibition at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, two paintings of these morning scenes plunge us right in, taking us on a journey through Vermeer’s art, spread across 10 rooms.Only from the end of the 19th century did he begin to emerge from obscurity, when the French critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger discovered him, fell in love with his works and in 1866 published a catalog on Vermeer.