Girl with a Pearl Earring Reflection

Bailey Blossman

Art History

The film “Girl with a Pearl Earring” was an interesting take on the inspiration of Johannes Vermeer’s popular painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring”. From what I understand, the actual girl in the painting is still a mystery today. I was under the impression that Vermeer was an upper-middle class citizen in the Netherlands and was possibly supported by the negotiations and commissions found by of his mother-in-law. I found the ending to be somewhat of a letdown – I thought for sure that Vermeer and Greet were going to get together in the end – but overall I think that contributed to the accuracy of the film. It would have been inaccurate if the typical Hollywood “fall in love” aspect would have taken over the entire plot. Generally, I thought this film was worth our time watching as a class because it provided a visual representation of how somewhat privileged artists were working in the 16^th century.
One of the properties that were present in the film was the idea of space. When Greet moves the chair from one of the setups Vermeer had been painting, she was opening up the space because “the girl looked trapped.” Also, color was present when Vermeer asked Greet to mix colors for him. From Greet’s reaction, I got the impression that this was an unheard of privilege – for a servant/housekeeper to be mixing paint for a famous artist. Vermeer’s paintings in the film appeared to be bolder because of the emphasis on color.
The idea of painting everyday life activity was shown in the film as well. During the northern Renaissance in the Low countries, this was very popular. Vermeer had a studio with multiple still-life objects, and he also chooses to paint people in the act of everyday activities. Shadow and light during the Northern Renaissance in the Low Countries were also taken into perspective more so than Southern Renaissance countries.