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For a modern observer, what distinguishes Vermeer from his contemporaries, Metsu, Ter Borch or De Hooch, is the aura of mystery that emerges from his paintings. This poetic quality, singular and indisputable, is precisely the subject of this book. But it is not considered here as an ineffable dimension. As Daniel Arasse suggests, Vermeer on the contrary very deliberately built the mystery of his painting.Through a close analysis of the works, their structure and their content, the author shows how the "interior scene" becomes in Vermeer a painting of intimacy, a reserved and inaccessible sphere at the very heart of the private world. It is this intimacy, in its impenetrable visibility, that the « Sphinx » of Delft paints.Our conception of Vermeer is thus completely renewed: we perceive that the poetics proper to his works is inseparable from his ambition as a painter. For the author, this ambition is not unrelated to Vermeer's Catholicism, to his faith in the power of the painted image to incorporate a mysterious presence.
