What a fabulous review by Nina Siegal @nytimes of the major #Vermeer exhibit @Rijcksmuseum!
She shows how Vermeer—aptly called “the Sphinx of Delft,” as there is almost no documentation of his life—has so enthralled us that pop culture has stepped in to fill the breach: 1/ from Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, to emeritus urban studies professor Philip Steadman’s geometrical speculations, to the magicians Penn & Teller’s film about a proudly untrained painter named Tim Jenison trying (in vain) to recreate a Vermeer in a warehouse. 2/