“Girl With a Pearl Earring” is a tale of domestic intrigue and dangerous attractions.
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Cinema and television are such wondrous mediums. Without them I would never have learned about the sacrifices of Easy Company during World War 2, the near-disastrous Apollo 13 mission, that vampires and other ghoulish monsters are vulnerable to certain items and that David Lynch makes some really weird films. A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of reminiscing about my childhood while I was writing about "The Flintstones". This week, I am having a fascinating crash course in art history and I love it!
Mention the words "Dutch", "master" and "artist" together and many would not hesitate to equate them to Rembrandt or Vincent van Gogh. As a contemporary of Rembrandt, another Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer was largely overshadowed and ignored during his lifetime. Not until the late 19th century and the start of the 20th century were Vermeer´s paintings finally recognized for their beauty and the artist´s mastery in his artful use of light and shadow to produce an almost photo-realistic look. Living during the 17th century in a small Dutch town called Delft, Vermeer painted only a total of thirty-five oil paintings, most of them depicting interior scenes of daily Dutch life where one or two figures are engaged in simple tasks. These Vermeer paintings are characterized as "still-life with people".
However, a single painting stands out from the rest. Universally recognized as one of Vermeer´s masterworks, "Girl With a Pearl Earring" is a simple but stunning portrait of a beautiful young girl innocently staring out with her lips slightly parted. Just like Da Vinci´s "Mona Lisa" (coincidentally, this Vermeer painting has often been referred to as the "Mona Lisa of the North"), the girl in this portrait poses some puzzling questions about her identity, her relationship to the artist and even her state of mind that helped conjure up such a vulnerable and sensitive look that is forever iconized on Vermeer´s canvas. That is exactly what author Tracy Chevalier had in mind when she set out to write a novel that fictionalizes the life of the girl in the painting. That book has now been adapted into a movie of the same name. Working mainly from historical documents and paintings from that era, both the book and the movie try to stay true to that particular era by incorporating known facts about Vermeer´s life and also about how people lived in 17th-century Delft into its plot.
The much talked about girl in the painting is Griet (Scarlett Johansson), a young girl who has just started working in the Vermeer household as a maid. In this house lives Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth), his pregnant wife Catharina (Essie Davis), her mother Maria Thins (Judy Parfitt) and their five children (at the time of Vermeer´s death, he would have fathered a total of 11 children). Although it is never revealed, this house actually belongs to Maria Thins. Johannes and Catharina moved in to live with her after their marriage. The film does a good job of setting the tone of the inter-relationships between the main characters early. Financially, the family is wholly dependent on a rich patron commissioning paintings from the painter and in this case, he comes in the form of Pieter van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson). As Vermeer takes an uncharacteristically long time to finish or even start one painting, the family risks losing everything they own if he doesn´t deliver in a reasonable period of time. While Vermeer pursues perfection with his art, Maria Thins and Catharina constantly worry about the family´s dwindling funds. This fact is pushed further home when, at the unveiling of Vermeer´s latest painting commissioned by van Ruijven (I found out that the painting is called "Woman With a Pearl Necklace"), the patron hints that he might go with a new painter who studied under Rembrandt. Not only does this piece of bad news bring a frown of trepidation to Maria Thins, it leads Johannes to quickly look for inspiration for his next painting.
As fate would have it, Griet is assigned by Catharina to clean Vermeer´s almost-sacred art studio where he paints his masterpieces. At this point I would like to acknowledge that the film set designers have done an amazing job recreating an uncanny replica of Vermeer´s studio by using the master´s many interior paintings as examples. It looks so real in fact that you can almost feel as if history is being painted right before your eyes. At first glance, Griet seems like any uneducated servant performing menial tasks but she is far more curious, resourceful and intelligent than everyone gives her credit for. For example, in a fleeting moment that took Maria Thins and Catharina by complete surprise, Griet asked both of them if she should clean the windows in Vermeer´s studio. When questioned why she would even ask before doing such a simple job, Griet astoundingly replied that it would change the amount of light coming into the studio, at once recognizing Vermeer´s skills in realistically depicting light and shadows in his paintings.
Johannes, however, immediately sees the potential in Griet´s curious nature and keen observations. She even inspires him to paint "Young Woman With a Water Pitcher" when he observes Griet washing the windows in his studio. As their connection with one another grows stronger, Griet is even allowed to make compositional changes to Johanne´s painting without having the master painter kicking up much fuss. Later, much to the dismay and rage of the two ladies in the house, he enlists Griet to help mix paints for him, forcing her to be tardy in her other work. Working so close together, Griet and Johannes slowly begin to find an unspoken attraction to each other. This attraction is further put to the test when Johannes manages to persuade Griet to reveal her luscious auburn hair from under her maid´s bonnet, which up until now, Griet has never revealed it to anyone before. At the same time, Pieter (Cillian Murphy), the local butcher´s assistant, is also attracted to Griet. She gladly reciprocates Pieter´s lavish attention when she comes to the realization that her foolish flirtation with Johannes will never amount to anything but misery for both of them, as they live in very different worlds that are sharply divided by social classes.
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