Vermeer – Girl with a pearl earring

Why is the painting so captivating? Johannes Vermeer painted this lovely young girl. It’s not really a portrait – not a formal one at least. It’s more of a stolen moment. The young girl looks over her shoulder, and her eyes find …us – looking at her. I suppose technically she was looking at the painter – at Vermeer – but that’s not how it comes across. No, she is looking at us. The painting captivates us because we feel a moment of connection with this girl from over 350 years ago, her head bathed in light, her face fresh, her eyes deep, her lips parted, her expression inquisitive.

It’s as if she knows us. And we know her. Having caught our eye, we are ready to engage with her, and she is wondering what we want to say. “Oh, hello…” we might start… but we can’t say her name because we don’t know it. We don’t know who she is at all.

It’s likely she is a stylised version of a young girl that Vermeer may have assembled from more than one model. This kind of painting was called by the Dutch painters among whom Vermeer moved as a “tronie” – literally “face”, but with a broadened meaning within art of capturing character, expression, and clothes – more than achieving a likeness of a particular person as you would do in a portrait.

Vermeer had painted other paintings with pearls, and other paintings with a young women – girl – motif.

But it this one that finally achieved worldwide recognition for Vermeer – long after he was gone.

So why her? It has to be her look. We can’t fully read it. Is she happy to see us? Surprised a little? Has she caught us… looking at her?

Vermeer’s light is soft and subtle. The only glints of light are from her eyes and that pearl, and these are not overdone. The light on her lips emphasises their fulness (surely one of the reasons Scarlett Johannsen was cast to play her in the 2003 movie). The light on her skin shows its youthful smoothness, and the colours in her skin reflect life and vitality – that subtle pink rose. Her eyes are deep and look straight into ours. Look at the painting too long and you almost need to look away, that earnest look becomes too much to hold.

We don’t know the colour of her hair, we can’t really see her eyelashes – apparently Vermeer did paint them, but they have faded. What we have is something inside, underneath the exterior. Her look. It’s hard to describe. As Hopper said of his paintings, “if I could put it into words I wouldn’t have to paint”.

Her clothes and headband are rich, even if a little faded over all these years. And that pearl. Look closely at the few brushstrokes that show the reflection from the main lightsource, the reflection from her white collar and even the subtle reflection from her ear. All in the pearl. Then see how the light reflects off the pearl and brightens her collar. Such mastery of light. Can you see it?

When we look at a portrait, we know we are truly seeing someone from the past. The various poses people were asked to take range from the fully formal, to less so – but in every case we are being shown the person. This brings with it the knowledge that we are seeing into the past – it’s almost a form of time travel.

But in “Girl with a Pearl Earring” we are almost certainly only seeing a stylised girl. So if we are not seeing a real person, why is she still so captivating? It’s because we are seeing a real emotion. We recognise people at that stage of their life – when things are still a bit fresh, when new experiences bring a sense of wonder, when meeting someone could be a doorway into wonderful unexplored things. We see her joy de vive, we see something we recognise in our time – and ponder that such an approach to life is not just for here and now, but something that is universal over space and time.

Vermeer saw it and captured it. His subtle mastery has created a real person, someone with whom we would be happy to share a moment of connection.

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