The mystery of Vermeer is that the paintings see everything and look at nothing, the affect is a staring-through, at a point beyond the painting. A that paint only rims the glass of some void. This surely the effect of the photographic ground which is indifferent to the demands of painter/painting. Because the camera is stupid, doesn't care for subject, is uncanny. (A camera's alienation we have grown acclimated to, and it takes a painting to reproduce the effect. This is similar Cerletty's virtual, an anonymizing viewpoint.)
The point being these literalize Vermeer's void, concretely remove the subject to hammer home the point of vacuous non-subject, an everything-but. Subject is replaced with mirrors, glints of light, with air. Instead searching for it. This makes mystery.
See too: "Colonel Rublev in the museum with a candlestick, paintings mechanization of mystery", Mathew Cerletty, Gertrude Abercrombie at Karma
