Lingering eyes

They say there’s someting about that smile and those eyes that remain in your mind long after you’ve seen the painting. But how about pearl earrings for a change?

As much as I love Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, there’s something quietly captivating about Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”

Instead of the Mona Lisa’s all knowing stare, the muse in this painting seems almost to be questioning you with her soft eyes. Also unlike the Mona Lisa is the stark contrast between object and background in Vermeer’s masterpiece and the faded, blended-in-background Mona Lisa.

I just finished reading a novel of the same name as the painting it’s based on, “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Tracy Chevalier. I loved how the narration was always a step before the event, speaking about to what’s to happen in the past tense. The novel painted a layered plot with a young maid, Griet, who captures the attentive eyes of her master- Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. And Griet eventually gets to wear the famous pearl earrings.

Now I want to watch the 2003 movie based on the book, starring Scarlett Johannsson-

I KNOW, HOW COOL IS THAT?!

I’m inspired to decorate a room in the Girl with a Pearl Earring’s colour palette.

It’ll be a cozy little room where I have a dusty glass cupboard of old china. It’ll have a windchime above a windowsill with living stone plants on it. There will be a door to the garden outside where I grow rosemary and basil and the room will have peeling faded floral wallpaper. And the sunny room might even have a wooden little table and chair set by shelves of vintage stones, hardcover books and jewellery. It’s quiet and warm outside, no sirens or screeching motorbikes and you can only hear the fluttering wings of birds and the chirps of insects. I swear I dreamed of this place…or maybe I lived there in a past life.

Anyways, back to the topic of celebrity faces in portraits instead of eyebrowless muses…

However, I doubt Mona Lisa would wear a top like that.

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