Little is known about Vermeer (1632–1675), whose paintings have been hailed as some of the supreme achievements of the Dutch golden age. In 1995 and 1996, Johannes Vermeer, the first exhibition ever devoted solely to the Delft master's art, featured 21 of the existing 35 works known to have been painted by him. The paintings were drawn from museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. Aside from Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, other masterpieces on display were Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665/1670) and View of Delft (c. 1660–1661), both from the Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague. Even when you have people working to reform [a department internally],” she adds, “it resists change. We didn’t go out and say, ‘We’re going to make a film that shows that police departments need major systemic change,’ but I think that’s exactly what it ends up telling us — that the reform failed.” Importantly, Vermeer was not particularly adventurous with his subject matter. And in the case of his depictions of letter readers and writers, he relied quite heavily on precedent, often directly deriving passages from the works of his contemporaries. Not only has he pared down the details of the scene to a minimum, but he has gone so far as to have consciously removed the woman’s shadow. Look closely, and you can see that both the chair against the wall and the rod holding the map cast their own shadows. But by removing the woman’s shadow, Vermeer creates an effect of atemporality, as if our central figure is suspended in limitless time, forever enthralled in her reading. The story is set in a medieval town known as England's Nazareth, a place known for religious phenomena. Cathbad, a druid friend of Ruth Galloway (the "star" of the series), notices a woman in a blue cloak in a cemetery at night and believes her to be the Virgin Mary. But when a woman wearing a blue cloak is found murdered the next day, there doesn't appear to be any connection to religion. Then, one of Ruth's friends who's an Anglican priest starts getting threatening letters - women simply shouldn't be priests, the writer asserts - and not long thereafter, another female priest is murdered.

In this work, the large, muted wall map of Holland that occupies much of the upper right of the composition has elicited numerous interpretations. Some have suggested that it may allude to the author of a letter, perhaps a husband away on a journey, or an absent lover (the pearls on the table could allude to vanity). The central element of the painting is a woman in blue standing in front of a window (not depicted) reading a letter. [4] The woman appears to be pregnant, although many have argued that the woman's rounded figure is simply a result of the fashions of the day. [5] Although the woman's loose clothing may be suggestive, pregnancy was very rarely depicted in art during this period. [6] Zum Lobe der Frauen : Untersuchungen zum Bild der Frau in der niederländischen Genremalerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Sylvia Jäkel-Scheglmann, p. 90-91, afb. 90 With the recently renewed popularity of letter-writing, we decided to take a closer look at the seemingly opaque Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. Here are t hree facts that may very well change the way you see it.Three and a half stars. While Cathbad, a friend of Ruth Galloway, is house-sitting in the Norfolk village of Walsingham, he sees a woman in white with a blue cloak in the graveyard. Since Wasingham is famous for pilgrimages and a fascination with the Virgin Mary, Cathbad, even though he is a druid, wonders if he has seen the Madonna. That is, until next morning when a young blonde woman is found dead just outside Walsingham dressed in a white nightgown and blue dressing gown. DCI Harry Nelson and his team are called in to investigate the murder. Ruth Galloway is brought into the situation when an old university friend Hilary who is now an Anglican priest, has been receiving anonymous and vengeful letters because of her role as a woman priest. Could the murder and the letters be linked? Then another woman, who is also an Anglican priest is murdered. Can Nelson with a little help from his team and also Ruth, find the culprit before the murderer kills again? ITV tonight launches a new drama series - or rather a variation on a long-established one - Prime Suspect 1973. Written as ever by Lynda la Plante, although in this case adapted by Glen Laker from her novel Tennison, it explores the origins of her central character Jane Tennison who appeared in successive series of Prime Suspect from 1991 onward. A 2012 survey found that more than four out of ten female police officers in England and Wales were so disillusioned with their profession that they had seriously considered quitting. At the same time, high proportions of women police officers claim to have been sexually harassed and in some cases assaulted by male colleagues. She assesses whether the laddish canteen-culture and sexist attitudes among male police officers has really changed since the 70s and 80s, and whether the force has genuinely created a safe and equal environment for men and women to work in. Without Ter Borch, there would be no Vermeer—that is clear,” notes Adriaan E. Waiboer, a Vermeer scholar who helped organize the 2017 traveling exhibition, “Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting.”

Given Vermeer’s seemingly preternatural ability to depict the effects of light and perspective, some scholars believe that he worked with the aid of a camera obscura. While there are merits to suggestion, Vermeer’s process was more than one of mere transcription. His talent was for pointedly editing out details—and here he does just that. While this is going on Nelson learns that his wife, Michelle, has been seeing young DS Tim Heathfield and things get a little awkward all round. And Cathbad has become quite domesticated since the birth of his daughter Miranda. Naturally, between them, Ruth and Nelson put most of the pieces of this puzzle together although Acting DS Tanya Fuller plays a significant role in this book. I’ll be reading #9 soon, just having a little interlude now. I’m really curious now though about whether Ruth and Nelson’s non-relationship will ever go anywhere. From the darkness, an arm pulls you into a small shop. As your eyes adjust, you see a pale woman in sharp clothes gesturing towards a wall of potions. Woman Reading a Letter ( Dutch: Brieflezende vrouw) [1] [2] is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, produced in around 1663. It has been part of the collection of the City of Amsterdam since the Van der Hoop bequest in 1854, and in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam since it opened in 1885, the first Vermeer it acquired. [3] Composition [ edit ] For example, Vermeer borrowed heavily from his fellow Dutchman, the artist Gerard ter Borch (1617—1681), who was famed in his lifetime for his innovative genre scenes. In fact, it was Ter Borch who first painted the contemplative scenes of well-to-do young ladies lost in thought for which Vermeer is so today so famed.

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It's also great to see members of the supporting cast getting on with life. Cathbad and Judy are living together and enjoying their two children (although Judy seems to be itching to return to the police station). Clough has settled down some, although his junk food consumption hasn't reduced at all. Tim is understandably moving on. Time will tell if Tanya and her girlfriend will feature more prominently. Score recorded February 2020 @ Allegro Recordings in Burbank, CA, under contract with the American Federation of Musicians, Local 47, Los Angeles While the contents of the letter are not visible, the composition of the painting is revealing. The map of the County of Holland and West Friesland [7] in the Netherlands on the wall behind the woman has been interpreted as suggesting that the letter she reads was written by a traveling husband. [8] Alternatively, the box of pearls barely visible on the table before the woman might suggest a lover as pearls are sometimes a symbol of vanity. [9] The very action of letter-reading reflects a thematic pattern throughout Vermeer's works, as a common private moment becomes revealing of the human condition. [10] Step aside from the sheer unlikelihood of a proliferation of serious crimes and murder landing at the doorstep of Kings Lynn CID and the number with an archaeological element (they often don’t have, but the continuing cast come as an entourage, hence the presence of a forensic archaeologist), and readers are left with one of the most popular sagas in crime fiction, and rightly so. Admittedly, the plot element isn’t always the strongest component, but Elly Griffiths has trademarked the perfect blend of realistic characters, personal drama, atmospheric settings and historical and archaeological content and overlaid it with a warmth and wit that has made Dr Ruth Galloway and her cronies a readers favourite. This eighth outing is one of the my favourites of the series, largely owing to the fact that the crime element, albeit reliant on a slightly tenuous motive is one of the more complex and has a high octane finish.. well, as pulsating as they come in sleepy Norfolk villages! And yet, as Matisse would insist, his models were never just props. The emotional intensity of their encounter, he explained, was distributed onto the whole of his canvas, and in the invention of “plastic signs [that] probably express their souls.” Woman in Blue could be said to narrate that process of sublimation. Ten photographs recording its development reveal transformations made to the initially naturalistic pose of Delectorskaya leaning against the arm of a settee.