Renaissance

The Girl with the Pearl Earrings. Around 1665

Why the Renaissance was so Important:

The French term Renaissance refers to the 19th century and it was used to describe an entire period of “rebirth”, that occurred between the 14th and 17th centuries. Artists of this time looked back to the painters that were before them while using a more noticeable sense of light and color. Creating a sense of space was also a major thing of the time. Art during the Renaissance was mostly made for religious reasons.  It was in this era that European artists started becoming interested in the world around them as well as more aware of their surroundings. Consequently, a majority of the art created at this time became affected by this new "realistic" style. Whether it's in sculptures, paintings, or even architecture, the art became more focused on a real life feel that was most wanted on nature as well as showing people's feelings. Many believe that when the people of this time looked at the classical culture is what may have started this era. Writers, painters, sculptors, and architects all began to look back into the classical age of the Greek and Romans. They did this in order to find out new ideas and inspiration from ancient literature. The art includes elements of water, wind, flowers, and trees that all effectively show the need of nature at this time.

What Johannes Vermeer Gave to the Renaissance:

Like most painters of his time, Vermeer probably at first did his paintings using either only shades of gray or a limited palette of browns and grays ("dead coloring"), over which more rich colors (reds, yellows and blues) were used in the form of a glaze. Vermeer produced transparent colours by applying paint to the canvas in loosely granular layers. No drawings have been proven to be his, and his paintings show few clues to preparing or a rough sketch. Some people say that Vermeer used a camera obscura to achieve perfect positioning in his compositions. The often-discussed sparkling pearly highlights in Vermeer's paintings have also been linked to the possible use of a camera obscura. However, if Vermeer’s owned one and the frequency of the use of a camera obscura is fought over by historians. Besides the accurately observed mirror reflection in some pictures, there is no historical evidence proving Vermeer's interest in optics. The list of the artist's belongings that were made after his death does not include a camera obscura or anything similar. There is no other seventeenth-century artist who ever hired him. The expensive pigment of natural ultramarine (a bright yet fairly darker blue) was used quite a bit in his paintings. Vermeer not only used elements that are naturally this colour; the earth colours umber and ochre should be understood as warm light within a painting's strongly-lit center, which reflects its multiple colours onto the wall. In this way, he created a world more perfect than any he had seen himself. This working method most probably was inspired by Vermeer’s understanding of Leonardo’s observations that the surface of every object reflects the colour of the adjacent object. This means that no object is ever seen entirely in its natural colour.

The Importance of The Girl With Pearl Earrings:

It is sometimes referred to as "the Mona Lisa of the North" or "the Dutch Mona Lisa".The girl in this painting is believed to be Vermeer's eldest daughter, Maria, who was about twelve or thirteen-years-old at the time it was created. Her facial features appear in several of Vermeer's works but his techniques on his subject make it difficult to compare the female faces in his paintings, because they are all shown in different lighting conditions and poses. There is very little information about Vermeer and his paintings. Girl with a Pearl Earring is signed "IVMeer" but there is no date on this work. It remains unknown whether or not this canvas was bought and if so, by who bought it. It's more likely that this image was a “tronie”, Dutch 17th-century description of a 'head' painting that was not meant to be a portrait. The girl is seen against a neutral, dark background, almost black, which makes it look three-dimensional. Seen from the side, the girl is turning to lookat us, and her lips are slightly open, as if she were about to say something to us. The girl is wearing a plain, brownish-yellow jacket, and the shining white collar is seen clearly against it. The blue turban shows even more contrast, with a lemon-yellow, veil-like cloth falls from it and onto her shoulders. The girl's headdress has an exotic effect. Turbans were a popular fashionable accessory in Europe as early as the 15th century.