The Little Street by Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675) was a Dutch painter that captured the quite and hidden lives around the town of Delft, Netherlands, his home town.  The subjects for the majority of his paintings were female workers in various settings like rooms, inns, brothels, and kitchens.  There was nothing extraordinary about Vermeer's choice for certain paintings but what makes each piece stands out is the amount detail, color, and realistic presentation with expressed irregularities.  This quality of style can be evidenced in The Milkmaid (c. 1658) and The Little Street (c. 1658).

In The Milkmaid, a woman is pouring milk into a ceramic bowl with a basket of baked bread and pieces of pulled apart bread near the bowl. The circular bread in the bowl is pitted and dented.  One can see the white centers and brown crest of the pulled apart bread.  The milk is shown falling into the bowl.  The woman's focus on the pouring is clearly expressed with sleeves rolled up, with two hands handling the pitcher, a daily chore.  The color of each object in the painting seems natural with a real illusion of being real with weight.

In The Little Street,  the painting shows an everyday quite scene in Delft with two women working and a child playing in the street. But what stands out, is the red bricks with greyish cement crusting between, the white wash with some browning in various areas, the street with irregular lines, and the natural coloring of the working women.  The painting wills the mind to believe that this is an actual polaroid snap shot.

Sources:

VERMEER, JOHANNES (2012-02-05). Complete Works of Johannes Vermeer (Masters of Art) (Kindle Location 448). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.