I went to Atlanta to see Girl with a Pearl Earring. The High Museum is hosting a special exhibit of 17th C Dutch art. She’s the headliner. Painted by Johannes Vermeer around 1665, the painting remained largely unknown until 1881 when an art collector bought it for two guilders. The collector saw something in it that apparently no one else had seen for two centuries. Since then, the painting has become one of the most loved in Western art. Some say, next to the Mona Lisa. Why? Most people I know, even if they’re not into art, know the painting. People like the painting. I like the painting. How come? What makes it great? How does the painting “work”? And what’s it like to stand face to face with one of Western art’s iconic faces?
Glad you asked.
It takes a hard work to make art. It takes work to see art.
I have to prepare myself to go to an art museum—particularly one stuffed with masterpieces. I’m a visual person. I’d rather look at cool stuff than eat. Well, almost. Putting me in a room full of art is like putting a dog in a room full of squirrels. I’m exhausted before I get through the first gallery. So, I have to prepare myself.
I’m going to spend a few posts sharing what I saw. First, I’m going to tell how I go through an exhibit. How to see is as important as what to see. Then, I’m going to talk about some of the painting’s “mechanics”, how Vermeer sets us up to see Girl with a Pearl Earring. Finally, I’m going to share what I saw. Art is never finished until someone sees it, interacts with it, converses with it. I’ll share some of the things I felt and thought seeing the painting.
I’m hardly a scholar on 17th C Dutch art. I really don’t want to be. I didn’t want to study my way through the exhibit. I purposely didn’t get the audio tour that takes you around, painting by painting. I didn’t want someone else’s voice in my head telling me what I was seeing. It’s my practice, first, to walk quickly through the whole exhibit. Get the lay of the land. See how the museum organized the show. Note where the various paintings are. If a piece here or there catches my attention, I’ll linger a bit before it, make a mental note to come back and then move on. I’ve never designed an art show, but in my commercial life, I’ve designed all sorts of exhibits and displays. I know the show’s designers have a story to tell. They want to create an experience. That’s fine. I walk quickly through an exhibit to get a sense of how they’re trying to get me to see, what “mood” they’d like to put me in. Just so I’m aware.
Girl with a Pearl Earring is in the last room of the exhibit. All by herself. The painting is hung above eye level behind a velvet rope. The designers want to emphasize that I’m standing before something great. This is the grand and reverential finale to the show. But I want to figure out its greatness myself. I might have preferred to discover her hanging amongst the Rembrandts or other paintings just as she might have in a 17th C Dutch home. But spectators fill the room. They’ve come to see her, too. In this sense, the exhibit design works. No matter where I stand—or even sit at the back of the room on the deep benches—I can see the painting above the crowd.
I’m kind of a sight-shark. I like to slowly circle my prey, so to speak. See what it has to say from a distance, from closer up at different angles, and finally, as close to it as I can get. And then back up, do it all again. This is only my first pass.
After I make my initial reconnoiter (which takes about half an hour), I slowly wander back through the show toward the entrance. This unwinds the pre-programmed sequence of things, lets me see things from different points. I spend more time with paintings I might have missed the first time and especially with those I’d noted before. (I’ll post about some of these later.) And then, doing the sight-shark thing, I go back through the exhibit more slowly, ending up again with Girl with a Pearl Earring. And I do it all again. Slower still. Paying closer attention. I’m not really thinking too much about what I’m seeing. I’m seeing with my eyes wide open as well as my mind. Letting the art guide my eyes. Letting my mind marinate in the images.
Time for lunch. Or a break, anyway.
After an hour or so, I’m ready to go back. Images from my first wanderings are beginning to replay in my head. I haven’t just one recalled image of Girl with a Pearl Earring, but dozens of gathered mental views. Questions arise. Am I remembering things correctly? Viewed from different angles at different times, some recalled images fight with others. Did I really see it that way? Certain passages in the painting call for re-examination. Now I’m looking for particular things. I’m ready to sit or stand or wander back and forth in front of her for maybe an hour.
I’m ready for the conversation.
art by skip johnston 