The Rarest Milkmaids and Pearls

‘Paris Syndrome” was first coined by a Japanese psychologist in the 1980s to label the particular ennui — or rather, kanashimi — that tourists from The Land of the Rising Sun suffered upon discovering that Paris was not a romantic fantasia but a real-life metropolis spoiled by garbage, pickpockets and noisy crowds. In 2006, the BBC even mistakenly reported that the Japanese Embassy had set up a hotline for depressed victims of Paris Syndrome. Like being un touriste, seeing da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” in The Louvre is said to be its own disappointment: a little painting swarmed by photography.

I personally wouldn't mind manning a hot-line for the select few who have made it into The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam this year and seen “Girl With A Pearl Earring” in person. It would be hard to imagine they would feel let down. Tickets for the national museum of The Netherland’s exhibition on Johannes Vermeer, which opened in February and closes in June, are completely, definitively, sold out, making this exceptional retrospective even more exceptional. With a collection that presents 28 of the 37 known paintings by Vermeer, with loans from institutions that include The Frick in New York City, The National Gallery in London, and The Louvre, this rare and extraordinary exhibit is a once-in-a-lifetime sight… or perhaps, a not-in-this-lifetime sight.

For the rest of us, there’s “Exhibition On Screen,” a documentary series that has brought audiences as close to the paint as possible, minus the museum ticket stub. “Vermeer: The Blockbuster Exhibition,” directed by David Bickerstaff, is a guided tour with expert analysis through The Rijksmuseum, contemplating the precise details that lend magic to the scenes of daily life in Delft — the rippling folds of satin dresses, stain-glass windows bouncing glow and shadow on white-washed walls, the milky smudge that adds weight to a perfect pearl, and those grand skylines of animated, cumulus clouds. Even if we’re not in Amsterdam, it is tulip season.

At The Moviehouse in Millerton, N.Y. on Sunday, April 23 at 1 p.m.