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Dutch Golden Age · 1665
Johannes Vermeer 1632–1675
Mauritshuis · The Hague
A tronie, not a portrait: Vermeer's most famous face turns out of darkness, lips parted as if about to speak.
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The world it was painted in, the life of the painter, and a close reading of the details. This film is free in Hear Art.
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Chapter 1 of 7
She is not a portrait. The Dutch called this a tronie — a study of a face, a type, an imagined character. Around sixteen sixty-five, in the quiet town of Delft, Johannes Vermeer — a painter who made barely thirty-five works in his life, and died in debt, forgotten for two centuries — sets this girl against pure darkness.
No room, no story. Only a turn, and a glance, meeting yours.
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