LAURA HODGES: It seems that the painting is giving us a glimpse into the daily life of this woman. He’s showing us a very familiar environment in a very familiar sort of setting. And yet the colors and the light and the shadows kind of lend a sense of drama as well.

Hi, my name is Laura Hodges. As an interior designer, I’m often looking at the natural light that comes into a room. And it feels like the use of light is guiding me around the room, and it’s sort of encouraging me to look at all the details.

NARRATOR: On the pitcher and basin, for example—the light gilds and defines their edges, so they appear even more three-dimensional.

ADAM EAKER: One of Vermeer’s key preoccupations as a painter is always the play of light, how the eye perceives light.

NARRATOR: Associate Curator Adam Eaker.

ADAM EAKER: As far as we can tell from the surviving evidence of his paintings, Vermeer had a favorite room in his house where the light was particularly good. Most of his paintings are actually set in this room, at some version of this window we see on the left.

NARRATOR: Here, the light coming in from the window illuminates the woman’s linen headdress and collar, making them appear almost translucent.

LAURA HODGES: Even this sort of dark shadowy corner in the bottom left, I just love how we are encouraged to explore the painting through that shadow and light. And I think if it were evenly lit, you probably would just be seeing it all at once, and there’s something kind of interesting and mysterious about discovering the painting a little bit at a time.

ADAM EAKER: A word that many writers have used to describe Vermeer’s paintings is transfiguration. That he’s taking ordinary everyday subject matter and transfiguring it into something sublime.