(classical music)
- [Voiceover] We're in the Mauritshuis in the Hague,
and we're looking at probably their most famous painting.
This is Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring."
- [Voiceover] Well, I would say not just their
most well-known painting, but maybe
one of the most well-known paintings generally.
- But only recently. - [Voiceover] True.
- [Voiceover] It's a painting that really seems
to have ascended in the late 20th century,
and it's interesting how our society picks out
certain paintings for fame and that people really
fall in love with, and perhaps it's because
this was the centerpiece of a film,
this was the centerpiece of a novel,
and perhaps because we know so little about the painting.
- [Voiceover] And it's interesting that this is
sometimes referred to as the Dutch Mona Lisa.
In both cases, we have bust-length portraits of women
in rather indeterminate backgrounds.
Now, we should be careful here, because
this may look like a portrait to us,
but, in fact, it's not a portrait.
The Mona Lisa is, though, for a
long time her identity wasn't known.
Now, we are pretty confident we know
who the Mona Lisa was.
But, in this case, this is not a portrait.
- [Voiceover] This is known as a tronie, that is,
a representation of a character,
of a particular type of person.
The way that we have, for instance,
in modern American situation comedies,
you have the villain, you have the hero,
you have a certain type of person.
- [Voiceover] And we think this is a exotic type,
because of her turban and her clothing
seems foreign, and also that rather
over-sized pearl earring.
- [Voiceover] And the way that we see her from the side,
but she turns towards us, and so
there's something momentary, there's something
very alluring, that we're not addressing her directly.
- [Voiceover] And it's a lot like the Mona Lisa.
In both cases, we have gazes that seem enigmatic.
What are they thinking? Who are they?
What is our relationship to her?
They're both paintings that really
open up possibilities for interpretation
with no one correct answer.
- [Voiceover] So much so that somebody was able
to produce an entire novel based on
this single painting that we know so little about.
What we do know about this painting, though,
is that it's technique is really quite extraordinary.
The subtlety of light is stunning,
in the way in which the reflectivity of the pearl
is cast against the darkness of her neck.
- [Voiceover] The softness of her features and also
the harmonies of those blues and golds.
- [Voiceover] Now, we know that Vermeer worked very slowly.
Some art historians have suggested that
he only produced perhaps two or three paintings a year.
And that his technique was really painstaking.
And we can see that in the care in which
he's creating form out of light.
- [Voiceover] But it's so momentary, just like
we look at Dutch landscapes and we have
a sense of the passage of time
as the clouds move across the landscape.
Here we have that same sense of a figure
who's just turned her head and is about
to speak with us or is about to engage us,
but we don't know what about.
- [Voiceover] And that our eyes are just in the process
of focusing on her as she meets our gaze.
And so we are complicit in this moment.
And I think the subtlety of color
and the subtlety of light, the intimacy here,
all of that, allows us to register
this very personal moment, and perhaps
this is why this painting is so beloved.
(piano music)