Girl With A Pearl Earring Essay

Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier is an exhilarating novel about art, passion, and life. This novel can give a reader an insight on artistic views and prove just how harsh life was in the seventeenth-century. A young sixteen-year-old girl is forced to work as a maid for famous painter Johannes Vermeer due to the fact that her father lost his eyes in a kiln explosion and can no longer work to support the whole family. As a maid, she must do housework, take care of Vermeer’s children, do laundry, buy meat from the butcher’s shop and withstand her solicitous and envious mistress Catharina along with her trouble-maker of a daughter Cornelia, a moody maid Tanneke and Catharina’s canny mother. In the beginning of the book when Griet meets her new master and mistress, Vermeer is captivated with the way Griet chopped and separated her vegetables. When Vermeer questioned why they are arranged in such way,
she replied saying the colors disputed one another.. Catharina envied the attention given to Griet from her husband Vermeer and frowned towards her instead of him. Griet soon became intrigued by Vermeer’s work. She hasn’t seen much of him in a few months but she’s been cleaning his studio. She grows accustomed by the scenery of his painting and notices when he switches up little things. Soon as she gains his trust he sends her on little errands such as: getting new paint, new brushes and laying out paint for her. Vermeer opens a window of his studio one day and invites her to gaze at the clouds. Vermeer asked Griet what colors she saw in the clouds. When she simply replied saying the clouds were white, he encouraged her to look more carefully; to look at them the same way she saw the color in her vegetables. Griet then saw the grey, blue, yellow and green in the sky now as she observed more intently. Vermeer then knew Griet understood. He began teaching her new ways to look at clouds and other objects and sceneries with deeper attention and vision. This taught Griet more about the world and life. The theme of this story is primarily artistic view.
I see it more as perspective. This is a well-written and magnificent fictional novel about a historical exquisite painting. After reading this book I did feel a little inspired. I began observing the clouds, the sun shine, light reflecting off of mirrors, and sometimes even people I know or don’t know. I am no artist. I do not have artistic visions nor do I see a complete story, complexity or message behind a painting or portrait. This novel has a lot to do with perspective. I don’t believe Vermeer loved Griet while many others do. I feel he appreciated having someone who could understand him and his art. Catharina loved him, but she could never understand his works of art even though she knew his paintings were beautiful. I believe Vermeer did love Catharina, he wished she would understand art like Griet did, but she couldn’t; which is why he didn’t paint her. He learned a bit from Griet as she learned plenty from him. He was a quicker and better artist because of her. That’s why he agreed on painting
her. I also don’t believe Griet loved Vermeer. She was very intimidated by him. I believe it’s because he was a great and famous painter. He was also her master. He was older, and intimidation comes from older people more often. She had a relationship with Pieter, whom I also believe she didn’t love. There’s no doubt that Pieter loved her. He did. Griet loved Pieter after she left the Vermeers, which is why she agreed to marry him.
I believe the pearl earrings she received ten years later from Catharina were a thank you gift from Vermeer. She never got to see the painting, she only had a few glances of it. Griet took the earrings to the Market Square and traded them for twenty guilders. She kept five, never to spend or give away. She must have wanted some parts of her memories with Vermeer and the pearls; and the painting she longs to see.