She only turned to us for a second, enough to remind us of what she looked like, and enough to let us know: what a unique picture it was, and in a sense, it was not meant for us to see.
Johanne Vermeer, The Girl in the Turban, also known as The Girl with the Pearl Earrings (c. 1660-1665), oil on canvas, 46.5 cm ×40 cm, The Royal Morretes Museum, The Hague, Netherlands
At the moment when she turned her head, the girl looked at us, and so did. We don't even know who she is. Of course, in the future, we may be able to imagine an entire novel, extrapolating the whole life from this mysterious apparition, but this has not happened yet.
At this point, the picture creates a rare feeling: overwhelmed.
Thus, the question of the model's identity is not important, but her unknown name is rather comfortable: even a simple name will make us think about it and relate it to history, or at least to a particular history of someone.
But what we have in mind is not a portrait, but a face painted by Vermeer, a face that is completely at ease and self-contained, unconnected with anything else.
Nothing matters, except what we see here and now. Life outside of painting can be left behind for a while.
If there is a slight concern between truth and reality, it is not because we have entered the world of dreams, but because the picture allows us to see that it is a sublimation of reality and dissipates daily experience.
This encounter is one in nowhere, without any precursors and consequences, simple and direct, unexpected, clear and clear, just like before, those thoughts that weighed on our hearts, now there is no trace, and they will appear later.
We can breathe a sigh of relief, because we don't have to think hard and hard about what the painting might mean, as we do when we're faced with other paintings.
The painting interrupts our thoughts. It rewrites the order of nature, as if time could slow down enough for us to grasp something, something that would have passed through our hands in the past.
Vermeer's paintings can put together all the things that conflict with themselves. Conflicting behavior often makes some of us feel divided or forward-looking. Now, what appears in front of us is a real picture, but it is the opposite of everything we know.
The black background, often used in religious works, now shows the eternity of the picture. With the shoulder as the boundary, this model girl wants to get rid of any connection with the world, and then she will completely ignore the existence of the world.
Even so, the painting seemed to be about to move, and the girl's face seemed to hang in the air, surrounded by a layer of brilliance, but this brilliance did not reflect more details of the facial features.
Their outlines are still blurred, not because we can't see them, but because time hasn't left its mark on them yet. All we can remember is their perfection, their symmetry, and their indifference.
The painting looks new, as if it has not been affected in any way.
The woman did not pass. She is here, determined to distance herself from everything, including the passage of time, and she will always be young.
Her lips were slightly open and she was about to speak. Or maybe we're too presumptuous and there's nothing to prove it. It was probably her natural expression.
We don't know if a word had just crossed her lips, or if that was the way she was used to looking on her face. The air begins to flow through the frame, and it is she who breathes. Just one breath.
If we had to describe it in detail, we might say it was pink, like the whole lips and soft cheeks.
This warm picture.
This girl wears heavy pearl earrings, does it hint at the girl's frivolous past? It's not just a symbolic accessory, nor can it be just a decoration to show off to others. It is of great significance in itself: this natural creation, transparent and pure, is the union of light and geometry.
The picture unfolds around the pearl, as if it were the nucleus of an atom.
Vermeer treats light like an architect, pearls are his plumb threads, and wrinkles on the maiden's turban are grooves in the pillars.
The large blocks of color give the picture its own sense of structure. The contact between the brush and the canvas is not wide open, but there is no hidden edge; there is infinite subtlety everywhere in the picture, shaping their underlying structure.
While the girl is depicted, she is also sculpted. Her face was a pearl.
The magic of Vermeer's portraits is also reflected in two main colors– blue and yellow, which are found in most of his paintings. These two colors are equally intense when one sees the light of the world.
Fables of Faith, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
But they are opposite to each other, and the world is divided into opposite sides by them, and at the beginning of time, this division is complete. The separation of light and darkness in Genesis may have been used to mark the fundamental opposition between black and white.
The Moon and the Goddesses, The Royal Moritz Museum of Art, The Hague
But in the human world, in the world of the earth and the four seasons, in a world where every minute and every second moves forward and time is constantly changing, absolute colors and principles take on more nuanced forms, and different colors evolve with subtleties that are difficult to detect.
The Girl Reading letters at the window is in the Dresden Master Gallery
Blue, cool tones, reminiscent of the vast expanse of the sky, suggesting that it is impossible to reach. Apparently, it inhabits an untouchable world. We cannot possess the blue thing, we can only gaze, knowing that although it is here, it is difficult to touch.
From the dawn to the nightfall, it covers all the shadows until it sinks into darkness.
As for the yellow, it radiates the power of the sun, transmitting heat and light as well as the energy of a new beginning.
When the two merge into one, yellow and blue produce green, and all the landscapes of the world are born in it.
There are small yellow spots in the blue of the girl's turban, and small pieces of blue on the yellow cloth are like small pieces of ice, but the two colors have never been mixed.
Time stops moving forward. The maiden stood in the space that had been miraculously preserved, and green had not yet been born from it. History is at a standstill, and it is reinventing itself.
Analyze some of the picture information again -
The opposite of portraiture
The premise of portraiture is to paint a special person, whether he is famous or not, whether he is still alive or not, whether he is recognized by people. The important thing is that the person's identity can be verified, even if that identity is forgotten over time.
Even if a model poses for this particular portrait, the young woman depicted and represented here will not be limited to that model.
In the Netherlands in the 17th century, the practice was called "tronie", which was a painting of a face or head with a strange headdress, which depicted a Muslim turban, which was an extremely rare headdress in this period.
The expectation of portraits to make portraiture more universal makes such heads symbolic. However, the viewer wants to know who the model is, which allows us to give the model the characteristics of a certain person.
The French writer André Malraux wanted to see the painter's daughter in the painting. Recently, the American novelist Tracy Chevrolet began to use this painting as a starting point to write a story featuring the maid by Vermeer's side.
Regardless of the intrinsic charm of the work, the girl with the pearl earrings has aroused the interest of many people because of its unparalleled approach to the essence of the painting: abandoning all personal characteristics and creating symbolic portraits.
As a symbol of pearls
Needless to say, the material value of pearls also has many symbolic meanings in many cultures.
Whether on a material or spiritual level, 8 is a symbol of perfection and at the same time a sign of purity: it appears in the oyster, causing us to think about the contrast between the rough and ugly appearance and the pure, bright, incomparable interior.
Legend has it that pearls are born in the depths of the ocean with light and dew, which brings them closer to Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, who was also born in waves.
Christ said, "Do not give holy relics to dogs, nor throw your pearls before the pigs, lest it trample on the pearls and turn around and bite you." "Likewise, we should regard the pearl as a symbol of divine knowledge, which is so precious that it cannot be revealed to a heart that is not worthy of it.
Blue and yellow
The harmonious relationship between blue and yellow is a typical feature of Vermeer's paintings.
Another Dutch painter noticed this, but he was very different from the inspiration he felt by his predecessors, and he also developed his own color combinations.
The Mistress and the Maid is in the Frick Collection in New York
In an 1887 letter to Emile Bernard, Van Gogh said of Vermeer: "The colors commonly used by this extraordinary painter are: blue, lemon yellow, pearl gray, black, white. Yes, just by looking at a few paintings, you can see the entire color range he uses, but the combined use of lemon yellow, light blue, and bright gray is his outstanding feature, just like Velázquez was able to use black, white, gray, and pink harmoniously. ...... These Dutch painters may not have much imagination and fantasy, but they have excellent taste and a sense of composition. ”
The Art of Painting, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Vermeer's combination of the typical features of complementary colors may have allowed Van Gogh to refer to them and allowed him to bring harmony and ideal calm to these complementary colors.
Johannes Vermeer's Self-Portrait
Johannes Vermeer, a master painter of the Dutch Golden Age, is known as the three major dutch painters together with Hals and Rembrandt. Vermeer was an excellent genre painter and, more often, a lyric poet in the sun.
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