Johannes Vermeer: Women

During the course of his brief 20 year career, Vermeer probably painted no more than 60 paintings. In Vermeer’s compositions, women appear about 40 times, while men make only 14 appearances, mostly in subordinate roles, three times with their backs to us. Critics have often noted that the women in Vermeer’s paintings cannot be considered beauties in the conventional sense of the word. Their beauty, instead, derives from the way they are painted and from the harmonic context in which they inhabit.