Vermeer, pearls and the girl.
The Dutch master of the brush, Johannes Vermeer, painted “The girl with a pearl” around 1665. The oil paint portrait of a young woman is one of the artist’s most recognizable masterpieces and possibly the most mysterious one. Measuring just 45 × 40 cm, the painting hangs on the wall of the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague and constantly attracts waves of curious tourists. Those who visit the country of tulips wouldn’t be able to miss such a perfect gem. You are probably already suspecting, dear Magpie, that I’m , too, intrigued by this painting-trinket and the trinket from the painting.
Let me sketch for you the cultural significance of the Dutch Mona Lisa, referring by the way to the book and film interpretation of the masterpiece. I hope, that just like me, you’ll get fascinated by the master’s pearl painting and the pearl as such, which hides a very ambiguous symbolism.
I know that painting…
Almost everyone has heard about “The girl with a pearl”, even by a chance. Already in school you must have come across a large-eyed person in a weird turban looking at you from the art textbook. But it wasn’t the exotic draperies hiding her hair that defined the image and made it enter by the way the young, often art-resistant head. It was a shining earring emerging from the darkness, so intriguing that it even made it to the title of the work (even easier to remember).
Apparently, it may seem that we are dealing with a simple portrait without surprises: everything that is in the title is on the canvas. Young girl was captured from the side, turning her bright face to the viewer. Uniform, dark background boosts the live color palette of the foreground, lemon yellow, warm brown and contrasting blue become three dimensional. The stately posing model has an unusually non-static face: her glimmering eyes pierce the viewer with emotion, and her wet lips are spread as if she was about to speak. What is hidden and unspoken seems to play with us, and the earring that shines in the depths does not reflect the mystery of meeting of the master and his muse… Historians of art have noted that Vermeer loved to paint beautiful ladies, but not necessarily his family. Who is this woman then? Maybe the pearl “tear drop” would tell you something…
Perfect pearls, sinful pearls
In the religious symbolism pearl is an ambiguous symbol. It represents beauty and persistence and its glow was used to describe the sky for ages. On the other hand, it can be associated with an immodest or impure woman. In the “Dictionary of biblical symbolism” we find the following description of the pearl: “Its beauty and value gain positive meaning in combination with divine wisdom or the kingdom of heaven. At the same time, their beauty and value can be worthy of reprise if people use them to make impression”… Well, if that’s the case, then we’re probably lost, aren’t we, Magpie?
But back to the topic – the pearls are the motif that Vermeer repeats very often. Well-born girls from the paintings play instruments, receive secret letters, seduce with their gaze. Their hair is intertwined with a ribbon and their bodies are covered with soft yellow jerkins, often adorned with ermine. It all is topped with the above mentioned jewelry: short pearl necklaces, pearls hanging from the ear, pearls on the dressing table… The presentation of women, ostentatiously manifesting their social status, can be linked to the criticism of vanity. Let’s not forget, however, that in the 17th century the iridescent gems were simply very fashionable among the wealthy ladies, and as the object they were a challenge – when painting them Vermeer had the opportunity to present his artistry. And who is vain in the end?
In the “Dictionary of myths and traditions of culture” a pearl is said to be symbolizing purity, health, faith, secret knowledge, dedication and tears. “The magnificent glow and the spherical shape have made an unblemished pearl one of the earliest symbols of perfection. For the mystics the pearl represented the refinement of instincts, the transformation of the elements, the spiritualization of matter “- we can read in Kopaliński’s dictionary. In the symbolism of the East it served as an aphrodisiac and guarantee of fertility; it was an impersonation of both the wife and the lover. Among his works Vermeer had some pictures of women secretly reading or writing secret letters, probably of love nature. Who, then, is the girl in a turban? What secrets do her sparkling eyes hide? What does the pearl-drop “flowing” from her ear represent?
The girl from the film
In 1999, Tracy Chevalier, the author of the novel “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” responded to these questions. Four years later, her bravado adaptation premiered, directed by Peter Webber, starred Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. On the pages of the book and on the screen the painter’s muse is Griet, a teenage girl living in the seventeenth-century town of Delft. Family poverty forced her to take the job of a maid at a talented painter’s home, who quickly finds in the girl an efficient cleaning lady, a loyal trustee, an inspiration, and finally a model… Pearls initially symbolize the status of the family to which Griet enters. The artist’s neurotic wife passionately wears gems as aphrodisiacs, tries to seduce her husband with her appearance and behavior. She is also very fertile, a bunch of children always races around the house and others are on the way. Soon the maid and the painter find understanding. Griet discovers the world of sensual nature of painting, pigments and beautiful compositions, so far inaccessible to her. While doing the laundry, cooking and cleaning, the girl starts to pay attention to… the colors of the clouds.
Enriching relationship with the employer feeds her soul much better than fresh meat from the beau-butcher. Emotions are beginning to reach its zenith when Van Ruijven, an art patron and a ribald financing many of Vermeer’s canvases, orders Griet’s portrait from the painter. The artist wants the maid to wear one of his wife’s pearl earrings, but this one is initially off – putting on a costly ornament, in addition belonging to another woman is something obscene for her. Finally, wrapped in oriental satins, she puts herself in the hands of her master: she lets her ear be pierced. The scene is erotic; the girl is experiencing intimate seconds of pain in the embrace of a painter who wipes her pearly tears. A brilliant work is created, and Vermeer reaches the heights of his portrayal skills… If the eye is the pearl of the face, it shines here with the inner light of Griet and a whole palette of unspoken, complex emotions. It is also said that one should not throw pearls in front of the pigs, but “Girl …” finally lands in the Van Ruijven’s collection, a loathsome art seller, who lonesomely tries to answer the meaningful look of the model – never really intended for him.
Dictionary, book and film analyzes lighten up a bit of Vermeer’s enigmatic portrait. Pearl, however, remains a pearl – a perfectly perverse, ambivalently beautiful, pure puzzle. In “Girl …” it reflects every possible shade of sacrum and profanum, condensed into one, meaningful tear. It is a mirror for the swan’s song of the artist, forbidden feelings, sacrifice and shared secret.
I’m leaving you now, Magpie, to your own contemplation – maybe it’s you, staring at the pearl pendant, who the portrait girl will speak to…