Girl With A Pearl Earring Quotes

He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.

You're so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.

It's a good thing you and your pills weren't around a few hundred years ago or there never would have been a Vermeer or a Caravaggio. You'd have drugged "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Taking of Christ" right the hell out of them.

Yes, well, life is a folly. If you live long enough, nothing is surprising.

I had walked along that street all my life, but had never been so aware that my back was to my home

I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.

He spoke her name as though he held cinnamon in his mouth.

I heard voices outside our front door - a woman's, bright as polished brass, and a man's, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on. They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur.

I could not think of anything but his fingers on my neck, his thumb on my lips.

It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.

I did not mind the cold so much when he was there.

He had decided to trust me.

You know I don’t listen to market gossip,” she began, “but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter’s name is mentioned.

There followed a time when everything was dull. The things that had meant something lost importance, though they were still there, like bruises on the body that fade to hard lumps under the skin.

At first I could not meet his eyes. When I did it was like sitting close to a fire that suddenly blazes up.

Pieter would be pleased with the rest of the coins, the debt now settled. I would not have cost him anything. A maid came free.

My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.

Lick your lips, Griet." I licked my lips. "Leave your mouth open." I was so surprised by this request that my mouth remained open of its own will. I blinked back tears. Virtuous women did not open their mouths in paintings.

I slowed my pace. Years of hauling water, wringing out clothes, scrubbing floors, emptying chamber pots, with no chance of beauty or color or light in my life, stretched before me like a landscape of flat land where, a long way off, the sea is visible but can never be reached.

I knew that he would go out to the tavern, returning with eyes like glittering spoons.

I felt as if my parents had pushed me into the street, that a deal had been made and I was being passed into the hands of a man. At least he is a good man, I thought, even if his hands are not as clean as they could be.

There is a difference between Catholic and Protestant attitudes to painting," he explained as he worked, "but it is not necessarily as great as you may think. Paintings may serve a spiritual purpose for Catholics, but remember too that Protestants see God everywhere, in everything. By painting everyday things-tables and chairs, bowls and pitchers, soldiers and maids-are they not celebrating God's creation as well?

When I left the room, Maria Thins was still standing in front of the painting.

Every eighth-grade girl is rare and precious. Every eighth-grade girl is a treasure, like a priceless work of art, so you’d like to think that every eighth-grade teacher will be like a security guard in an art gallery. He’s not there to enjoy the beauty; he’s there to protect it. He’s there to enforce the rules, and Rule Number One is: DO. NOT. TOUCH. Keep your fingers, lips, and man bits off the masterpieces. It should be obvious that the Girl with a Pearl Earring deserves a chance to smile her wistful smile without some creepy guy feeling her up. Because damage to that precious work of art can be hidden, but it can never be undone.

It seemed to me that the baker had an honest response to the painting. Van Ruijven tried too hard when he looked at paintings, with his honeyed words and studied expressions. He was too aware of having an audience to perform for, whereas the baker merely said what he thought.

Paintings may serve a spiritual purpose for Catholics, but remember too that Protestants see God everywhere, in everything. By painting everyday things—tables and chairs, bowls and pitchers, soldiers and maids—are they not celebrating God’s creation as well?” I

Sólo los ladrones y los niños corren.

Yalnızca hırsızlar ve çocuklar koşar.

It should be obvious that the Girl with a Pearl Earring deserves a chance to smile her wistful smile without some creepy guy feeling her up. Because damage to that precious work of art can be hidden, but it can never be undone. My

نپرسیدم تا چه حد برای گرفتن این اطلاعات خودش را به خطر انداخته. زیر لب گفتم، « متشکرم پیتر. » برای نخستین بار بود که نامش را بر زبان آورده بودم. به چشمانش نگریستم و مهربانی را در آن ها دیدم. در عین حال چیزی را تشخیص دادم که از آن وحشت داشتم – توقع.

Años de acarrear el agua, retorcer la colada, fregar los suelos, vaciar los orinales, sin que la belleza o el color o la luz entraran en mi vida, se extendían ante mí como una paisaje llano en el que se divisa el mar a lo lejos, pero nunca puedes alcanzarlo. Si no podía trabajar fabricando los colores, si no podía estar cerca de él, no sabía cómo iba a poder seguir trabajando en aquella casa.

I liked sleeping in the attic. There was no Crucifixion scene hanging at the foot of the bed to trouble me. There were no paintings at all, but the clean scent of linseed oil and the musk of the earth pigments. I liked my view of the New Church, and the quiet. No one came up except him. The girls did not visit me as they sometimes had in the cellar, or secretly search through my things. i felt alone there, perched high above the noisy household, able to see it from a distance.

I was chopping vegetables in the kitchen when I heard voices outside our front door – a woman’s, bright as polished brass, and a man’s, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on. They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur.

I leaned agains the warm brick wall and gazed up. It was a bright, cloudless day, the sky a mocking blue. It was the kind of day when children ran up and down the streets and shouted, when couples walked out through the town gates, past the windmills and along the canals, when old women sat in the sun and closed their eyes. My father was probably sitting on the bench in front of the house, his face turned towards the warmth. Tomorrow night might be bitterly cold, but today it was spring.

Я хотіла знати, хоча доки не знала, могла сподіватися.

But you – no, there’s all manner of things you think but don’t say. I wonder what they are?

Evet,yaşam bir aldatmaca. Eğer yeteri kadar uzun yaşarsan, hiç bir şeyin şaşırtıcı olmadığını öğreniyorsun.

You have ruined me, I thought. I licked my lips again

There is a difference between Catholic and Protestant attitudes to painting,’ he explained as he worked, ‘but it is not necessarily as great as you may think. Paintings may serve a spiritual purpose for Catholics, but remember too that Protestants see God everywhere, in everything. By painting everyday things – tables and chairs, bowls and pitchers, soldiers and maids – are they not celebrating God’s creation as well?

I had not yet been down to the cellar where I was to sleep. I took a candle with me but was too tired to look around beyond finding a bed, pillow and blanket. Leaving the trap door of the cellar open so that cool, fresh air could reach me, I took off my shoes, cap, apron and dress, prayed briefly, and lay down. I was about to blow out the candle when I noticed the painting hanging at the foot of my bed. I sat up, wide awake now. It was another picture of Christ on the Cross, smaller than the one upstairs but even more disturbing. Christ had thrown his head back in pain, and Mary Magdalene’s eyes were rolling. I Iay back gingerly, unable to take my eyes off it. I could not imagine sleeping in the room with the painting. I wanted to take it down but did not dare. Finally I blew out the candle—I could not afford to waste candles on my first day in the new house. I lay back again, my eyes fixed to the place where I knew the painting hung. I slept badly that night, tired as I was. I woke often and looked for the painting. Though I could see nothing on the wall, every detail was fixed in my mind. Finally, when it was beginning to grow light, the painting appeared again and I was sure the Virgin Mary was looking down at me.

He's often wished that he could capture the full essence of each woman's laugh on canvas, but he settles instead, on watching how, when a woman chuckles, her head moves slightly to the left or right so that the light grazes it at a new angle and creates a new pattern of highlight and shadow. It's this subtle shifting that he finds astounding - how everything and nothing can be written on a face through its lines, through the way skin around the eyes crinkle or how the shifting of a mouth belies joy or sarcasm or simple placation. He wonders what Vermeer might have said to that girl with the pearl earring, what words could have stirred in her that wanton expression, because even amateurs understand that faces allow an entry point and that negative space is the key to any good painting: what isn't included is sometimes more important than what is.

Research from Denis Dutton, Brian Boyd, V.S. Ramachandran, William Hirstein and E.O. Wilson, among many others, is clear on the subject: we are enticed by forms, shapes, rhythms and movements that are useful to our existence. We find Vermeer’s “The Girl with the Pearl Earring,” beautiful, for example, because her face is symmetrical, a clue to her strong immune system2. As the neuroscientist Eric Kandel suggests in The Age of Insight, we are fascinated by Gustav Klimt’s Judith because “at a base level, the aesthetics of the image’s luminous gold surface, the soft rendering of the body, and the overall harmonious combination of colors could activate the pleasure circuits, triggering the release of dopamine. If Judith’s smooth skin and exposed breast trigger the release of endorphins, oxytocin, and vasopressin, one might feel sexual excitement.

It was about a year, the ball turned his neck, once, once more again, again.

There was something creepy about the femininity at Laurinda, something so cloistered and yet brimming with stifled sex that it reminded me of the Victorian whalebone corsets we once saw at the Werribee Park Mansion, which kept everything cramped tight, until the stitches unravelled and out poured mounds of naked pink and white. It was the femininity of tiny éclairs and teacups, crocheted collars and little pearl earrings, the young-girl-to-old-woman transition that skipped sexuality altogether, so that when you saw it - in Gina, for instance - it was as garish as a scarlet A on the chest.

As an example of how celebrated the painting is, novelist Tracy Chevalier published a historical novel, also entitled Girl with a Pearl Earring, in 1999, which encouraged new interest in Vermeer and his works. The novel was later adapted for film and as a successful play.

Head of a Young Woman This portrait was completed by 1667 and is now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Because of its almost identical size and its proximity in tone and composition, it is often considered to be either a variant or counterpart to the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring. The subjects of both paintings wear pearl earrings, have scarves draped over their shoulders, and are shown in front of a plain black background. In addition, it is likely that the creation of both works involved the use of a camera obscura.

The sitter is depicted as having a homely face, a wide-spaced and flat face, small nose and thin lips. This apparent lack of idealised beauty has led to a general belief that this work was painted on commission, although it is possible that the model was the artist’s daughter. The picture encourages the viewer to be curious about the young woman’s thoughts, feelings, or character, something typical in many of Vermeer’s paintings. Girl with a Pearl Earring and this painting are unusual for Vermeer in that they lack his usual rich background. Instead the girls are framed by a background of deep black, producing an isolating effect and heightening the girls’ appearance of vulnerability.