Girl with a Pearl Earring, The: A Novel Kindle Edition

I read "Girl With a Pearl Earring" because I was so enthralled by the 2003 film adaptation directed by Peter Webber from a script by Olivia Hetreed. When I saw the movie I was impressed by its visual elements but now that I have real Tracy Chevalier's novel I am really impressed by Hetreed's screenplay. Usually when I am inspired to read a novel after I see a film it is to get more of the story, thinking that less than half of what is in the book has made it to the screen. That is most decidedly not the case with "Girl With a Pearl Earring."Johannes Vermeer's 1665 oil on canvas painting, which hangs in The Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis in The Hague, is considered one of his masterworks. It is a portrait of a young girl, wearing a turban and a pearl earring, looking over her shoulder, her lips parted slightly, set against a black background. But if you are familiar with Vermeer's body of work, most of which represented the corner of his studio in which he worked, then clearly "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is an atypical work. This painting has raised a series of questions ever since it was rediscovered in 1882: Was the pearl real? What is she wearing a turban? Was the painting intended to be a portrait? Nothing is known about whom Vermeer used as his model, so the biggest question of all is Who was the girl in the painting?Chevalier answers all of these questions, and more, by creating a young girl named Griet. After her father, a tile maker, is blinded in a kiln accident Griet is sent to work cleaning in the house of Vermeer in the Dutch city of Delft. She is Protestant and the Vermeers are Catholic, which adds another element of strangeness to the young girl when she moves into the house. Vermeer's wife, Catharina, is about to deliver another baby, and Griet is to help with the household work. But she is also given the job of cleaning the master's studio, where she faces the daunting task of cleaning the objects on display without moving them from their position.Griet is a smart girl, which for some may well be the Achilles heel in the conceit spun by Chevalier since they may well conclude that neither Greit's education nor her experiences would allow her to come up with the deep thoughts she has at critical points in the narrative. But that intelligence is necessary to the story Chevalier wants to tell and the foundation for everything that follows is Griet's common sense conclusion that cleaning the widow's in Vermeer's studio will change the light that falls on his subjects."Girl with a Pearl Earring" is about the art of painting and we learn, through Griet's eyes, something of Vermeer's technique, especially with his use of the camera obscura. But it is also something of a love story, in that Griet cannot help but be smitten with the man who ends up painting her portrait, even if the thought that something might actually happen between them never really enters her mind. For a time, in Chevalier's story, Griet serves as a muse of inspiration for a great painter who produced a true masterpiece.This is not a true story. Most of the characters really lived and you can travel to the Netherlands and see the actual painting, but Chevalier's answer to all of the questions swirling around Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" are only creative speculations. Yet in the final analysis Chevalier achieves the ultimate level that author's aspire to when they tell such tales in that we wish that this was indeed a true story. Chevalier makes Griet as memorable as the painting she inspires in this 2000 novel.On the back of the my copy of this novel author Deborah Moggach, author of "Tulip Fever," says that she read Chevalier's story with a book of Vermeer's paintings beside me. I read "Girl with a Pearl Earring" after not only seeing the movie but after checking out all of Vermeer's paintings online, so that when Chevalier talks about the paintings "Woman with a Pearl Necklace" and "The Concert" I was able to visualize them. I wish that reproductions of those paintings had been included in this novel as well as the cover picture of the titular artwork, the same way I wish that I could see the paintings and architecture that matter in Dan Brown's novels. Since you can easily find a couple of excellent websites with Vermeer's artwork I would strong recommend that even if you have also seen the movie, that you be able to have the same advantage as Griet and be able to study these great paintings.

I like how the author creates the possibilities of how some of Vermeers paintings may have been created. She illustrates in your minds eye how paintings can be and are looked at from another perspective. The family life and era is described in interesting detail. A very good read that leaves you with a smile upon completion:)

I found this book hard to put down. I wanted to know what happened to Griet next. The book explains things the movie did not. I have re-read the book twice already.

This book is a compelling story about the artist Vermeer. It is written in such a wayto reflect the stark simplicity of Vermeer’s work. Difficult to stop reading until youhave finished.

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy ChevalierInspired by a painting by Dutch artist Vermeer, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING is a fictional account of how this famous painting came to be. Just as Johannes Vermeer painted this anonymous girl back in the 1660's, author Tracy Chevalier painted a beautiful picture of the world of 17th century Holland and the world of this young girl who eventually becomes the subject of one of his paintings.Ms Chevalier's story starts with the introduction of Griet, a young teenage girl who lives with her parents and younger sister in a very humble home in the town of Delft. She is helping chop vegetables in their kitchen when her parents receive a visit from two stately looking guests. Griet finds out soon enough that this couple is Johannes Vermeer the painter, and his lovely wife Catharina. Johannes notices how Griet is separating the vegetables by color and his observation does not go unnoticed by Griet. This first brief encounter between them is the spark that starts their new "relationship".Griet learns then that she is expected in a few days to start working for the Vermeers as their maid. Griet's father is no longer able to work due to an accident he had on the job, and now it is up to Griet to help the family out. Her older brother has already left home, and is learning to make a living at what their father used to do: Make tiles.A few days later, Griet is living with the Vermeer's and their children and servants. They live lavishly for these times, and Griet soon becomes accustomed to her new life. She returns on weekends to visit her family, but she has to stay with the Vermeers during the workweek.Griet has many duties as a maid, including doing the laundry and helping out with the children. She slowly bonds with the children, all except Cornelia, who seems to be a trouble maker and tries her best to get Griet into trouble with her parents. This becomes especially evident when, for some reason, Johannes decides to make Griet his assistant, on top of all the duties Griet has to perform as their maid. Because of Catharina's jealousies, his wife is not to know about this special role that Griet was about to play in the house. With the help of Catharina's mother, Griet finds ways to secretly help Johannes "grind" his colors and do other necessary things to help him prepare for painting, in the hopes that Catharina doesn't find out.Griet falls in love with his paintings, and with him. And soon, all she can think about is him. Since she is now his special assistant, she is privy to his private world of painting, a world that even Catharina is not allowed to trespass. Through the eyes of Griet the reader sees how Vermeer created his beautiful works of art, using a creation that was the forerunner of today's camera. A new world opens up for Griet. Because of this, Griet also knows that she is headed towards danger of losing her job.GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING in my opinion was a literary work of art. Maybe I was heavily influenced by the cover, which depicts the actual painting of this girl that Vermeer made famous back in the 17th century. Regardless of the reason, I personally enjoyed this fictional tale of the creation of one of Holland's most famous paintings of the renaissance era.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS.The name of the sitter for Vermeer’s “Girl with the Pearl Ear Ring” is not known for certain, although some scholars think she may be Vermeer’s eldest daughter Maria. But in Tracy Chevalier’s fiction she is called Griet, and she is the narrator who, from the beginning, is particularly aware of colours. Her father was no longer able to work; so in 1664, at the age of sixteen, Griet had to go into service as a maid in Vermeer’s household, consisting of Vermeer, his wife Catharina, his mother-in-law Maria Thins, his then five children (with another on the way), and another maid, Tanneke (whom Chevalier makes the subject of “The Milkmaid”). Although Griet’s special job was to clean Vermeer’s studio without disarranging anything in it, she was also supposed to do the laundry, the shopping, and other chores.When buying meat in the meat market, the butcher’s son Pieter paid Griet initially unwanted, but intimate attention. Her parents had noticed and welcomed it, seeing Pieter as a desirable possible husband for her, and invited him to dinner. Griet was soon attracted to him, but insisted that she was still too young to marry him.Griet was tense in the house: she was a Protestant, whereas the family was Catholic; Catharina, her malicious eldest daughter Caroline and, sometimes Tanneke (whom Chevalier makes the subject of “The Milkmaid”), were harsh to her.She was in awe of Vermeer, who emerges as a cold individual, interested only in perfecting his paintings and willing, as we will see later, to ride roughshod over the Griet’s feelings. But he showed her the mystery of a camera obscura. He had her stand in for the woman he was portraying in “The Woman with the Water Jug”. He taught her to see that, for example, things we take to be white are often not white at all. He taught her to grind paints for him.She had a good eye: when Vermeer was painting “A Lady Writing a Letter”, Griet thought that the arrangements of the objects on the table were not quite right, and she ventured to change them a little. Vermeer acknowledged that he had learnt something from his maid.All this was kept from Catharina. (The book made Vermeer a cool husband also, and it also says that he never painted her – although scholars think that she may be the pregnant “The Woman in the Blue Dress” and “The Lady Weighing a Pearl.”)Vermeer had painted “Woman with a Pearl Necklace”, said by Chevalier to be of Maria, wife of Vermeer’s patron Pieter van Ruijven. Van Ruijven took a lascivious interest in Griet and commissioned Vermeer to paint for him a portrait of her, and his doing so takes up the later part of the book.But in that part I found some hard-to-believe episodes. When the painting was nearly finished, both Vermeer and Griet felt that something was missing from it: it needed a spot of light which would be provided by the pearl ear ring. Vermeer insisted that Griet wore a pair of ear rings (although he painted only one) belonging to Catharina. Griet resisted: if Catharina, who was already hostile to her, found out, she would explode. But on Vermeer’s insistence she gave in. Catharina did find out and did explode, forcing Griet to leave her employment.I don’t know how Catharina identified the ear ring as hers: it is just a brilliant but impressionistic blob, or indeed why Vermeer couldn’t have painted that blob without Griet actually wearing the ear ring. Nor can I understand the intensity of Griet’s sense of violation when Vermeer saw her briefly with her hair loose instead of being modestly concealed under her maid’s cap or under the turban she wore for the portrait. Her extreme reaction to this also struck me as totally unbelievable.The end of the book, ten years later and not long after Vermeer’s death, is also hard to believe: that, in his Will, Vermeer had left her the ear rings which, after all, were not his, but his wife’s.These reservations detract a good deal from what is otherwise a fine depiction of life in 17th century Delft, of the precariousness of Griet’s position in Vermeer’s house, and of the techniques of painting.

This author is brilliant at building up a steady story pace . However I found the description of early Holland quite depressing , probably it was . I found the film slightly more enjoyable however the ending is more satisfying in the book . I suggest, read the book and then watch film . I really like Chevalier as an author, however this wasn't one of my favourite stories .

Such an interesting plot! I loved the details of how a 17th century Dutch household was run, the tasks that the servants had to do.....and the details of how a painter's materials are produced, what has to be ground up to obtain the requisite colours.....this is all part of the narrative, as much as the interaction between the characters.

Most given the book's title and cover will assume the book is all about Vermeer's painting and although that is at the centre of the story, it is ultimately only the backdrop. What makes this book so great to read is the author has captured the mindset of the teenager maid Griet and used that to observe in simple language the story of her life and family and her interaction with the Vermeer family household where she works.The realities for poor people wholly at the mercy of circumstances whether from injury by work accidents, living a life based on simply having enough to eat, their varying treatment by richer persons, or the social punishments meted out to those who stepped out of line in any small way interacting with richer families for whom patronage and social standing was all, is very well captured and depicted.The art of painting as practiced by Vermeer as described through the maid's eyes brings the whole production of a painting at that time to life very graphically from inception to final showing though she is largely an observer in his domestic household who ultimately becomes the subject of the key painting.A well balanced use of history and events makes this a very enjoyable read - I could not wait to finish it once started

This is a very well-written book, characters are subtly developed, feelings are surpressed and nothing is over-egged. However the story doesn't do much, it's more a tale of sexual awakening exploring forbidden love and obsession. Griet is incredibly naive and very impressionable. She turns from a loving, humble family girl to a house maid, who looks down on her parents and almost seems embarrassed by her background. It is not a redeeming feature. I also found it irritating how she helped her master in secret, creating mystery where there was none. She mixed his paints and posed for him, she never slept with him. This is for me where the novel comes unstuck. The sexual tension is there, the latent longing for one another, the stolen glances, the gazing into each other's eyes, but the story never reaches a crescendo. This obviously mirrors the painter, Vermeer and Griet's relationship, but for me it never became anything more than a teenage crush and the novel seems immature as a result. It is however very well written, well described and the detail of each painting - the colours, the composition is accomplished.