Girl With A Pearl Earring Thoughts

The movie was very entertaining and informational at the same time. Although what was being shown wasn’t true it gave great insight on how the life of an artist was, in particular Vermeer. The view of how artists were commissioned and how they lived while painting was interesting to watch. It was also very interesting to see how certain things affected the life of the artist, and their commission. For example, “Grete” affected Vermeer’s commission and painting, causing Vermeer trouble with his family along with creating a wonderful painting that is still viewed and discussed in Art History classes. I loved seeing what actually went on behind the scenes of a painting and how the life of a commissioned artist went along.
So far we’ve talked about how a lot of artists were commissioned to do work instead of always painting things on their own. Families and people of higher classes paid them to come and stay in their household and paint portraits or other images that they wanted for money. This movie shows a good example on how artists were commissioned. Vermeer worked for a person of a higher class and was told to paint certain images like “Girl With a Pearl Earring” for money.
There weren’t many properties shown in the paintings in the movie, for paintings weren’t shown very much. But there were some things I noticed that affected the properties of the painting. For example, when looking at his models, the surroundings affected how the painting would be. The lighting set the tone of the painting and caused certain shadows to stand out. It is seen through the dark backgrounds the models stand in front of that is brings great contrast to a painting and causes the main subjects to really pop out.