I’ve only been at St Andrews for a short while and September is already almost over. I feel a certain Scottish chill settle permanently into my bones that can only be attributed to me living in the coldest room of the building. The radiators being on full blast has not seemed to make much of a difference. Nevertheless, as I spend the afternoon procrastinating by lying in my bed and watching The X Files, my laziness is disturbed by a patch of early autumn sunlight that, despite the cold, is blinding.

I am reminded of one of my favourite artists.

When the lockdown first began, my A-level classics teacher inspired within me an unparalleled love for Vermeer. Having now spent about six months (yes, half a year) more or less stuck inside my house, I find myself beginning to feel a particular kinship with the characters in Vermeer’s works.

Not much is known about Vermeer’s life. He had a wife and 15 children, 11 of whom survived. He lived in the relatively small Dutch town of Delft, the artistic epicentre of the Dutch Golden Age. He painted thirty four pieces and a further three are attributed to him. We know that he devoted much of his life to painting and used expensive and high-quality pigments, but the majority of our knowledge of him comes from accounts by other artists, and from a few registers and official documents.

While you maybe know him best for his astonishing ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’, Vermeer has become symbolic to me of the final few days of summer, of leaving my home and my friends and essentially everything I know. He has also come to be symbolic of new beginnings. Symbolic of September. And looking across his works, it becomes clear to me that these next few weeks of online lectures and tutorials are my new beginning.

Vermeer specialised in painting interiors and domestic scenes, all of which contain some element of timelessness and universality, particularly to a modern audience experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Looking at ‘The Little Street’ I think about how often my day is coloured by the views out of my own window. While the scenery and architecture are different, the subject is much the same. I have seen the neighbours pressure washing the pavement outside their house; I have seen the people across from me pack up and move away after realising that the daily commute into London really isn’t so essential after all.

I look at ‘The Geographer’ and ‘The Astronomer’ and think of my mum and dad (neither of whom are astronomers nor geographers) locked away all day. My dad in the spare room/home office/general-place-to-dump-things and my mum in her bedroom with the blinds pulled down only leaving for a 20-minute lunch break. Both hunched over desks working hard.

As for hobbies, ‘The Art of Painting’ conjures up humorous images of me posing for my sister’s art project, ‘The Lacemaker’ reminds me of when I briefly took up sewing as a hobby to pass the time, attempting to alter second-hand trousers; and ‘Woman with a Lute’ makes me think about how many people have become inspired to pick up their old and dusty instruments and bring about a little joy and brightness in the form of music. ‘The Milk Maid’ brings to mind the brief yet prolific trend of cottagecore that spread across social media platforms, prompting people to appreciate the little things and the simplicity of ‘country life’ as they began to take up baking bread as if Paul Hollywood himself would be trying it over a zoom call.

And finally, the painting which has always spoken to me the most, ‘Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window’. It was my favourite painting when I first saw it back in May sometime, and it still speaks to me at an incredible volume. I even have it on a mug (courtesy of aforementioned classics teacher). Something about the way the girl stands, bathed in a soft light from the window is striking, intriguing. There is a sort of sadness and loneliness to it echoed in my current situation: stuck inside grasping at straws for any connection to the outside world, a longing to be with the writer of this letter, to be out of this room. It tugs at my heartstrings, making me think of my friends back home (who aren’t leaving for uni just yet).

However, there is still a sense of mystery to the painting. Why is the reflection in the window different to the girl in the room? What is the curtain hiding from the viewer? Why has the bowl of fruit been left in disarray? Questions that, of course, will never be answered but instil a sense of spookiness that is essential to autumn, especially with October being next month!

I will leave it to you to imagine your own relationship to these pieces. What do the symbols in the paintings mean to you? How can you relate them back to your own experiences?