Girl with a Pearl Earring - Johannes Vermeer
Art appreciation day for all my Valentine's - hello readers, thanks for being the other half of my writing team!
Since I was a teenager I have loved the artwork of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), an early Dutch painter who was a master of light. He puts other famous artists in the dust when it comes to realistic paintings with natural lighting. Unlike other famous early artists, Vermeer painted tranquil domestic scenes, often of a woman doing household tasks. While I liked the painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, (described as his most famous artwork) it was not the primary work that I had associated with the artist. I was more familiar with “The Milkmaid”. The painting of “The Milkmaid” uses similar colors as are used in the “Girl with a Pearl Earring”. Early artists were also chemists who mixed their own paints with colorful minerals and other substances. The colors they had available were limited to the colorful minerals or substances that they had access to in the 1600s or other early eras of oil painting.
Addition - a video about Vermeer’s life and The Milkmaid painting. The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer: Great Art Explained (Youtube)
Vermeer: Master of Light, (Complete Documentary) - (Youtube)
Recently I picked up a frame print of the Girl painting and hung it in my kitchen - her eyes seem to be looking at you where ever you are standing in the room. I had forgotten who the artist was. I looked it up today and found an article with the modern pop culture history surrounding the artwork and it left me feeling icky and a little outraged or baffled.
Here is my modern take on the Girl with a Pearl Earring - I have placed her in a modern kitchen with a UFO.
Vermeer tended to paint tranquil domestic scenes, often of matronly housewives. His gift was in portraying natural lighting and the feeling of serene beauty of motherhood and nurturing home environments. The Girl with a Pearl Earring is young, but old enough to start thinking about marriage. The subtle rounding of the large pearl earring adds a hint of the rounded belly and breasts of motherhood. The girl is demure and looks caring or interested as her eyes seem to make contact with your own, from anywhere you are standing.
Vermeer did not typically paint the ornate but stilted portraits of rich people that many other earlier artists did for their career. Posing for an oil painting was something that took a few months and so a rich person would have the artist live on their estate during the completion of the portrait and a few family members might have portraits painted during the artist’s visit.
The author of the article and our modern era trendy pop culture seems confused about the painting’s meaning and also are super focused on the fact that the girl is unknown . . . so we get this art interpretation in the article:
“The Girl With a Pearl Earring is a manifestation of beauty in simplicity. Her portrait is not particularly distinctive, her face is quite common” (blog.artsper.com)
Because her name is not known we have to label her face “quite common” and somehow the giant pearl earring is also common then? or of no value because Vermeer masterfully painted the impression of a pearl with just a glint of light and shadow?
The article informs us that a best selling novel was written about the unidentified girl, and a movie was made. And the painting is an icon of beauty while also being a painting of a “not particularly distinctive, …. quite common” girl? The article also gives a hint of ‘what was going on between the artist and the girl - is she another Mona Lisa (with salacious intrigue)? Was something going on between the artist and the girl? Me: Puke face emoji, a couple of them. Modern culture is disgusting, far too often. The MET museum webpage describes “Young Woman with a Water Pitcher”, as a voyeuristic view of a woman getting ready for the day.
“Standing at an open window, a woman begins her day with ablutions from a gilt silver pitcher and basin, with linen coverings protecting her dress and hair. The first work by Vermeer to enter an American collection, this painting embodies the artist’s interest in domestic themes, giving an almost voyeuristic glimpse into the private life of a woman before she presents her public face to the world.” “Young Woman with a Water Pitcher”, The MET.
Please study the rest of Vermeer’s artwork before making more salacious statements. He portrays the beauty of womanhood in many domestic settings. A woman hard at work making lace is portrayed looking at her work in this painting called “The Lace.” (art.com) A male geographer is portrayed at his work, standing looking at a map, in the painting “The Geographer”. (artsandculture.google.com)
Vermeer even shows us himself at work - at least the back of his head, in a painting called The Artist’s Studio. There is a female model posing in the painting, and she is fully clothed and is holding a book. (ebay.com) Paintings were a glimpse into other people’s lives in a way that didn’t exist otherwise. There were no photographs in the 1600s.
Oil paintings were the ‘photography’ of early eras. Paintings or drawings were the only way to have a lasting image of anything. Carved or molded sculpture was another way to have a lasting impression of something in early eras. And therefore, there also were no nudey magazines. Rich gentlemen in later centuries would commission art with semi-clad or nude models to hang in private areas rather than openly in public areas where women and children might go.
Johannes (Jan) Vermeer did not portray modern day overt sexuality as if woman have only one purpose on Earth - to titillate men. No, women’s primary purpose on Earth is to perpetuate the species and to lactate for the sustenance and positive development of infants and toddlers. Yes, not all women can have a baby or lactate, but that does change the primary purpose of females.
Note - humans are “mammals” and mammals lactate for their young, not for their mate. The primary purpose of females is to lactate for infants, not to pose in bikinis for men. ← This is really a major point to learn sooner rather than later. Trans people are also not the primary purpose of females or males and if you are self-centered enough to think otherwise, than please think a little harder about the interconnectedness of all life and the cycle of life - propagation of the species requires that someone does carry a baby to term and ideally will breast feed the child for at least 6 to 9 months.
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Back to art and the Girl with the Pearl Earring - Vermeer painted the household life of common people as opposed to famous royalty, but the households weren’t destitute cottages. He painted families of well to do Dutch people with farms or other businesses that might have existed in the 1600’s. Any girl that has giant pearl earrings is not the servant girl or the milkmaid or an 1800s model who might pose in scanty clothing for an artist and possibly live with him.
The Girl with a Pearl Earring was likely the daughter of a well-to-do family that may have commissioned a portrait of her. Or Vermeer liked her simple beauty (she is beautiful, not “quite common”) and wanted to play with the light on the pearl earrings that match the glint of her eyes.
The magic of the painting is in the way he had the girl pose for the work with her body turned away and her head turned looking at us and the artist. The mesmerizing effect of the painting is due to that magic arrangement of eyes and the 3/4 view of her face - the girl seems to be looking at you no matter where you are standing in relation to the painting. She is sweet, young, demure, and anyone who takes her gaze as being somehow “intimate” with the artist, is again, just disgusting to me.
Why does modern society have to make everything about sex? It is creepy. *Rhetorical question, the overt sexuality is by design to break up traditional family structure and healthy procreation as a goal of sex, and increase casual sex and exploitation of women and children as steps towards dictator takeover of our society and planet.
People see what they think about is also probably the basic reason. Just because your mind is in the gutter doesn’t mean other people are there with you. Except when media is deluging us with soft porn in most ads, TV shows and music videos, then many people may have their minds full of gutter thoughts all day long.
Compared to the housewives in many of Vermeer’s other paintings, this girl is a teenaged girl - but a well dressed one with expensive jewelry - maybe not the jewelry of royalty but why should that make her “not particularly distinctive, …. quite common”? Would her beauty seem more beautiful if she had an ornate crown or if her head wrap was covered with pearls?
News flash - extreme inequality between the rich and the poor is unhealthy for societies and tends to promote instability and crime or despair.
“Quite common” is beauty. Ornate wealth is ostentation and waste. ← my opinion.
Another art opinion about the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring - is that there was no model - Vermeer painted an imaginary person, or ‘tronie’, in what is described as an exotic outfit with an oriental turban and an improbably large pearl. Tronies were painted to portray a certain type of character - an iconic look… (mauritshuis.nl)
Maybe the girl was only in Vermeer’s imagination, but maybe not. His mastery of natural light and painting photorealistic people and scenes with handmade oil paints is the treasure.
Disclaimer This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health guidance.
Happy Valentine's Day! 💌
Sugar art — better as a decoration than as food:
I think my sweet treat today will be pomegranate seeds. I have a couple still but I use up most of the fresh peel in cooking before I open another pomegranate. The seeds get eaten quicker 😋😁.
Agree with you on all you have written ! Thank you for your wholesome thoughts & observations!
💖Happy Valentines Jennifer! 💖
Nice post and I concur with your opinions. Thank you for sharing.