Artwork
Johannes Vermeer
Girl with a Pearl Earring
1655
Dimensions
1.25" x 2"
3.5 cm x 5.5 cm
About Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, dated c. 1665. It is his most famous work of art.
Girl with a Pearl Earring is not a portrait, but a “tronie”: a painting of an imaginary, idealized figure. While many of Vermeer’s paintings depict women involved in daily tasks, such as chores, reading or writing, Girl with a Pearl Earring features an unidentified young woman doing nothing but looking over her shoulder. The intimacy of her gaze makes her seem familiar; her ambiguous expression heightens the enigmatic nature of the masterpiece.
Vermeer's demonstrates his mastery of light and shade by setting the young woman’s vibrant blue and yellow turban and glistening pearl against a dark background. Her skin glows, while subtle glimmers of white on her parted red lips make them appear moist.
About Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch Baroque Period painter known for his domestic interior scenes of 17th-century life, remarkable for their purity of light and form. Vermeer did not simply record the world around him, but he carefully crafted poetic constructions based on what he observed. During his lifetime, he produced relatively few paintings, only less than 40 are known today.
