A True Baroque Era Painting: Girl with a Pearl Earring
Photo via www.mauritshuis.nl Johannes Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring in 1665 in the city of Delft in the Netherlands. Vermeer painted only 35 paintings before his death, Girl with a Pearl Earring being arguably his most famous. I chose this piece to write about because upon learning the origin of the term Baroque (which was derived from the Portuguese word Barocco , meaning irregularly shaped pearl), I immediately thought of this painting. The pearl in this painting would not have been based on a real pearl, but rather an artificial one, due to its large size and teardrop shape. To the uneducated or misinformed viewer, this painting may originally be mistaken for a portrait. It is, however, a tronie. You can distinguish that this is a tronie because of the unknown identity of the subject. In addition, the girl in the painting is wearing costume-like attire, such as her turban. Johannes Vermeer had been Protestant until he married his Catholic wife, Catharina Bolnes, an