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www.privateairny.com Private Air | Winter 2021/2022 68 e Love Letter and Woman Feeding the Parrot e Letter and Woman feeding a Parrot seem at first glance unrelated PDH/Vermeer motifs. Vermeer in his later period returned to multiple figure compositions as PDH had done all his life; his interiors now contained a relationship contained within the rectangle rather than our relationship to his solitary figures. Here we have the mistress, who has paused from playing the lute, holding a freshly handed sealed letter looking quizzically at her maid, who looks back smilingly. In the Pieter de Hooch, we have a gentleman holding the door of the parrot cage open so the lovely young woman can amuse herself with the parrot while holding a drink. On closer look, however, it is likely that both scenes are about the same thing: seduction, one via a letter and one by a parrot. Both letter and parrot are indirect means to attract the women. is a general human climate that affects the tone of artist's works throughout history, discernable even decade by decade. Hence our ability to look at a pictures and detect the specific time and place they were created. We feel the changes and evolution of human culture and its expression thru the artists work of their times. Rather than a cut out figure against a white wall, Girl Reading a Letter is now a complex dynamic of geometry and figure. ere is a drapery within drapery dialogue: the green foreground fabric sets the boundary of the painting and our world, while the red drape hanging from the window swoops into the scene from the top left and journeys thru the glass, wall, head and Cupid painting to the right middle edge of the picture. is movement is synchronized in parallel with a movement beginning at the lower window and continuing through chair, rug, and still life and ends at the bottom right of the canvas. Perhaps more pictures and maps will be uncovered in Vermeer's work and thus, "De Hoochifying" his ouevre more. e few remaining empty background pictures in X-rays show traces of maps that may or may not have been overpainted by Vermeer. Regardless of whether we add these new pictures to this camp, it is clear Johannes constructed his pictures with the dynamic juxtaposition of figure and rectangle, of picture in picture as Pieter de Hooch began doing in 1656. Gemaldegalerie Berlin Rijksmuseum Rijksmuseum Wallraf–Richartz Museum ART

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