Girl With a Pearl Earring
Last Modified: 17/01/2017
Find out what makes one of Vermeer's best works so captivating.
- 1Is she turning towards you or away from you?
- 2No one can agree.
- 3She's the mysterious subject of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer's...
- 4..."Girl With a Pearl Earring,"...
- 5...a painting often referred to as the "Mona Lisa of the North."
- 6Belonging to a Dutch style of idealized,...
- 7...sometimes overly expressive paintings known as "tronies,"...
- 8...the "Girl With a Pearl Earring" has the allure and subtlety...
- 9...characteristic of Vermeer's work.
- 10Vermeer's treatment of light and shadow or "chiaroscuro"...
- 11...uses a dark, flat background to further spotlight her three-dimensionality.
- 12Instead of being like a set piece in a theatrical narrative scene,...
- 13...she becomes a psychological subject.
- 14Her eye contact and slightly parted lips, as if she is about to say something,...
- 15...draw us into her gaze.
- 16While we may never know the real identity of the "Girl With a Pearl Earring,"...
- 17...we can engage with her portrait in a way that is unforgettable.
- 18As she hangs in her permanent home in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague,...
- 19...her presence is simultaneously penetrating and subtle.
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