Until recently, the image at the head of my web page was a detail from Vermeer's View of Delft.

The View of Delft rightly deserves admiration, and none apparently recognised that more than Proust, who not only died with Vermeer's name on his lips, but who named the View as the painting beloved by Bergotte, a character from in À la recherche du temps perdu who best seems to hold Proust's own views on art. 

Bergotte is worried after reading a newspaper article admiring the "petit pan de mur jaune", for he cannot remember it, and accordingly goes to see the View of Delft at an exhibition, where he tragically dies.

A friend recently asked where I believe Proust's piece of wall to be. While it may well be possible that the piece of wall does not exist (but is merely part of an impression Proust desired to create), I think it more likely that it is to be seen to the right of the painting, where the drawbridge creates the illusion of a sloping red roof against the yellow wall in the background. In other words, I am convinced the newspaper article was wrong, and Bergotte, who knew the painting by heart, was right originally to fail to remember little piece of yellow wall described by the newspaper as "a beauty that was sufficient in itself". Of course, there are astonishing microcosmos in Vermeer and in the View of Delft in particular that warrant the praise of the newspaper. I do not think we can blame Proust's newspaper writer when his heart was so clearly in the right place.

[For more European paintings, let me unequivocally recommend the Web Gallery of Art, an ambitious venture making reproductions of 12th-18th European painting and sculpture available online.]