a girl with pearl earrings

An interpretation of Griets ability to see and its use for Vermeer and the story:

In the following lines, I will focus on Griets ability to see and show, how her conciousness is highly influenced by her visual experiences. It will be subject of this paper to prove that an imagery of the eye and further visualisations is used throughtout the whole book to express Griets personality. In the end it will be clear to what extent her visual ability was so special and why she became so precious and important to Vermeer and his paintings.

When Griet is at her family house chopping vegetables and placing them in strick order on the plate, the reader is for the first time confronted with young Griets unique talent of ‘colourization’. Griet had put the vegetables slices in coloural order in a circle on the plate, the colours fitting. (“I always laid vegetables out in a circle, each with its own section like a slice of pie. There were five slices: red cabbage, onions, leeks, carrots and turnips.” page 5) Vermeer, the towns most famoust painter, came to take a look at his further house maid when he sees the slices put in order. The first conversation they have is

The first time Vermeer speaks directly to her is about the camera obscura, an object that visualises reality in a strange way. It turns it upside down and left and right reversed. Griet is at first very shocked by this experience. She is not too much of a dreamer to be fascinated on the first look. But as time proceeds, she gets more and more fascinated. I believe that the camera obscura and furthermore the moment that Vermeer and Griet find a common interest in photography and paintings is the moment their ‘relationship’ beginns. Vermeer includes Griet more often in his works now, lets her take part in his obsession and even teaches her how to look at things differently. One time he points at the clouds in the sky and asks her about the colour of the clouds. (“What colour are those clouds?” page 107). Griet is certain that they are white, but her master draws back a circle to her vegetables the day they met the first time, a proof that he already than had realised about Griets special talent. And once Griet is reminded of her vegetables, she comes to the conclusion, that there is more to the clouds than just white. (“...the turnips has green in it, the onion yellow.” page 107) And suddenly there is “...yellow...and some green” (page 108) in the clouds.

Griet even describes herself in terms of the eye. She has “wide eyes”(page 3)! In my interpretation, this points to a small naivity, but also to a open minded personality. And in fact, one could find proofs for both.

As you can ‘see’, visual awareness and reception plays an important role in this work. It is like a red ribbon that is found on many excerp

Some topics in this essay:
Tracy Chevalier’s, Vermeer Griet, Griet Catharina, Chevalier Griet, vermeer griet, griets ability, unique talent, page 107, job vermeers, light brown, camera obscura, visual awareness,