© Paolo Dala
Meisje met de Parel (Girl with a Pearl Earring) Johannes Vermeer (1665) Mauritshuis (The Hague, The Netherlands)
The Mona Lisa Of The North
Is she turning towards you or away from you? No one can agree. She's the mysterious subject of Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer's 'Girl with the Pearl Earring', a painting often referred to as the "Mona Lisa of the North".
Belonging to a Dutch style of idealized, sometimes overly expressed paintings, known as "Tronies", the 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' has the allure and subtlety characteristic of Vermeer's work.
But its painting stands apart form the quiet narrative scenes that we observe from afar in many o Vermeer’s paintings. A girl reading a letter [Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window], a piano lesson [The Music Lesson], a portrait artist at work [The Art of Painting]: These paintings give us intimacy while retaining their distance, drawn curtain often emphasizes the separation. We can witness a milkmaid serenely pouring a bowl of milk, but that milk isn’t for us. We’re only onlookers.
The studied compositions on Vermeer’s paintings invokes a balanced harmony. With the checkered floor in many of his works, Vermeer demonstrates his command of perspective and foreshortening. That’s a technique that uses distortion to give an illusion of an object receding into the distance. Other elements like sight lines, mirrors, and light sources describe the moment through space and position...
The absence of these elements brings the 'Girl with the Pearl Earring' to life. Vermeer's treatment of light and shadow or "chiaroscuro" uses a dark flat background to further spotlight her three-dimensionality. Instead of being like a set piece in a theatrical narrative, she becomes a psychological subject. Her eye contact and slightly parted lips as if she is about to say something, draw us into her gaze.
Traditional subjects of portraiture were often nobility or religious figures. So why was Vermeer painting an anonymous girl?
In the 17th Century, the City of Delft, like The Netherlands in general, has turned against ruling aristocracy and the Catholic Church. After eight (8) decades of rebellion against Spanish power, the Dutch came to favor the idea of self-rule and a political republic. Cities like Delft were unsupervised by kings and bishops. So, many artists like Vermeer were left without traditional patrons. Fortunately, business innovations, spearheaded by the Dutch East India Company, transformed the economic landscape in The Netherlands. It created a merchant class and new type of patron.
Wishing to be represented in the paintings they financed, these merchants preferred middle class subjects depicted in spaces that looked like their own homes surrounded by familiar objects. The maps that appear in Vermeer's paintings, for example, were considered fashionable and worldly by the merchant class of what is known as the Dutch Golden Age.
The oriental turban worn by the 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' also emphasizes the worldliness of the merchant class. And the pearl itself, a symbol of wealth, is actually and exaggeration. Vermeer couldn't have afforded a real pearl of its size. It was likely just a glass or tin drop varnished to look like a pearl.
This mirage of wealth is mirrored in the painting itself. In greater context, the pearl appears round and heavy, but a detailed view shows that it's just a floating smudge of paint. Upon close inspection we are reminded of Vermeer's power as an illusion maker.
While we may never know the real identity of the 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', we can engage with her portrait in a way that is unforgettable. As she hangs in her permanent home in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, her presence is simultaneously penetrating and subtle. In her enigmatic way, she represents the birth of a modern perspective on economics, politics, and love.
James Earle Why is Vermeer’s Girl with Pearl Earring is considered a Masterpiece?
