Patricia Parks at The Millions:
In Vermeer’s Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, the observer is drawn into a simple domestic scene: the titular woman stands illuminated in the light of, we presume, an unseen window. The expression on her face as she reads is perhaps one of surprise, certainly one of concentration. In this vivid, static painting, she seems even more still and more rooted, unmoving though clearly moved by what she is reading. And the observer is similarly absorbed by this intimate moment.
This interpretation, such as it is, is arrived at first through the eyes: the light and color, the posture of the woman and her expression, the singularity of the room. Vermeer’s painting is a touchstone of sorts in Naomi Cohn’s compelling memoir, The Braille Encyclopedia: Brief Essays on Altered Sight. To her, with her very limited ability to see, the story is not in the painting; it is the painting. “Who cares what is on the letter?” she writes. “Look at how Vermeer makes folds with paint. Look at the intensity of his looking, how he chose what to see.”
more here.
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