He plants himself in front of Young Woman With a Water Pitcher, entranced by the hushed fervor of the painting. The woman is tucked into an angle of a room, her head held at a contemplative tilt, her face slightly obscured by a linen scarf. She’s just begun to open a window, flooding her tight corner with a buttery daylight and an intimation of invisible horizons beyond the sill. “She’s so alone with her thoughts,” Gilbert murmurs, “but then there’s also the light from outdoors, the map hanging on the wall, and the carpet spread out on the table, which clearly comes from some distant land. You can feel the presence of the wider world.
New York Magazine profiles Alan Gilbert: Harvard man, violin dork, Vermeer fan, conductor.