The "Girl with a Pearl Earring" - Johannes Vermeer

Why is this one of the most famous Masters portraits in history?

Partly, because it isn't actually a portrait. The girl you're looking at isn't real — nor is her earring.

Look closely and you'll realize it's all an illusion..

The "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is often called "the Mona Lisa of the North", owing to its famed status and mysterious qualities.

But just who is the girl, and why is she so famous?

Vermeer left more to our imagination than you first realize.

The borders of her nose and eyes are undefined, forcing our brains to fill in the gaps — so each individual viewer sees something different in her gaze.

Dutch master Johannes Vermeer painted her 150 years after the Mona Lisa, but she's every bit as enigmatic.

Is she turning away or about to face us? What do her semi-open lips suggest she's about to say?

Vermeer left more to our imagination than you first realize.

The borders of her nose and eyes are undefined, forcing our brains to fill in the gaps — so each individual viewer sees something different in her gaze.

But what her fleeting glance is supposed to mean is secondary to the bigger question: who is she?

The clue, of course, is in the earring. Zoom in and it reveals something...

There is no earring. It's nothing but a few smudges of paint — again, our brains imagine they form a complete sphere. There isn't even a chain attaching it, it just floats.

In fact, nothing here is real, including the girl...

This girl isn't a real person, she's what's known as a "tronie."

Tronies were a genre of painting, common in the Dutch Golden Age, used to study a certain facial expression or to embody an abstract concept.

 

 

 

 

For example, tronies could embody specific human virtues and vices, like wisdom, bravery, or malice.

Or they could represent the very idea of youth, old age, or the transience of life itself.

 

So if Vermeer was depicting not a real individual but an idea, what was that idea?

Well, despite being painted in Vermeer's hometown of Delft, she's clearly dressed in non-Western attire...

 

She was painted during the 17th century Dutch Golden Age when a new, wealthy merchant class was rising.

Her oriental turban and oversized pearl likely represent this new access to faraway lands and luxury

 

But there's more to her than that.

First, note that Vermeer was known for delicate compositions not of divine beauty in religious subjects, but the beauty of everyday life.

 

His humble domestic scenes reveal the harmonies of ordinary existence, unlike the idealized grandeur of Renaissance art.

But Vermeer also weaved symbols into his paintings to carry deeper meaning...

 

In his "Allegory of Faith" (a personification of Catholicism) the woman's pearls are a reference to her holy purity.

And above her head, a glass orb contains a panoramic view of the entire room...