#THE GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING MANUAL#

Of course she attracts Vermeer's attention she's a hard worker and responds instinctively to the manual labor of painting - to the craft, the technique, the strategy, even the chemistry (did you know that the color named Indian yellow is distilled from the urine of cows fed on mango leaves?). It becomes clear that Griet is intelligent in a natural way, but has no idea what to do with her ideas. Catharina ( Essie Davis), Vermeer's wife, sometimes seems to be standing where she hopes nobody will see her. Nobody ever says what they think in this house, except for Maria, whose thoughts are all too obvious, anyway. Both have an output of about one a year, which is good if you are a mother, but not if you are a painter. She has set her daughter to work producing babies while her son-in-law produces paintings. The household is run like a factory with the mother- in-law, Maria Thins ( Judy Parfitt) as foreman. She is sent by her blind father to work in Vermeer's house, where several small children are about to be joined by a new arrival. That is essentially the message of 'Girl with a Pearl Earring.' The girl's name is Griet, according to this story. Sometimes two people will regard each other over a gulf too wide to ever be bridged, and know immediately what could have happened, and that it never will. The painting is contemplative, reflective, subdued, and the film must be, too: We don't want lurid revelations breaking into its mood. I can think of many ways the film could have gone wrong, but it goes right, because it doesn't cook up melodrama and romantic intrigue but tells a story that's content with its simplicity. Tracy Chevalier's novel speculating about the painting has now been filmed by Peter Webber, who casts Scarlett Johansson as the girl and Colin Firth as Vermeer. The girl's face turned toward us from centuries ago demands that we ask, who was she? What was the thinking? What was the artist thinking about her? The painting has become as intriguing in its modest way as the Mona Lisa. You will not hear that she was his lover, because Vermeer's household was under the iron rule of his mother-in-law, who was vigilant as a hawk. You can hear that it was his daughter, a neighbor, a tradeswoman. Not much is known about Vermeer, who left about 35 paintings.

The girl with the pearl earring