see every Vermeer painting

came back from germany last night, and I crossed four of my list while there—The Procuress, Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window, A Lady Drinking and a Gentleman, and Woman with a Pearl Necklace. Woman with a Pearl Necklace was the first I saw and I can’t explain how I felt when I looked at it. It is probably my favorite of the four, but I also liked Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window.

Vermeer is one of my favorite painters, and his works are so rare. Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands have most of them, but there are a bunch of his paintings in New York (mostly in the Metropolitan Museum),but besides NYC, there aren’t very many American cities that house a Vermeer (Washington has 2 and Boston has 1, I think).

Ive been studying Vermeer and reading “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” I cant imagine seeing his work in the flesh. There’s a condition called Stendhals Syndrom. Its a psychosomatic condition whereby a person can be completely overwhelmed by something so beautiful that they faint, go into shock, or even have a heart attack. Vermeer’s work seems to be likely to illicit such a response.