The Girl With A Pearl Earring

While eating that amazing lunch in Delft our company mentioned that there was a famous painting worth seeing - the "Girl With A Pearl Earring." I haven't read the book or seen the movie but I knew I couldn't leave The Netherlands without critiquing the work for myself.  

The Vermeer House is where the famous Dutch painter used to live.  We began the tour in the downstairs gallery which is filled with prints of most of Vermeer's works.  Each painting had a tag with analytical points of which to be aware.  I find viewing paintings is much more fun when I can first gather my own interpretation and then immediately get another perspective.  It kind of lets me gauge how contrived/farfetched my ideas might be.

Eager to get out of the museum we moved to the 2nd floor - still no girl with a pearl.  The 3rd and final floor was full of lame landscape photography. Where was the painting? We inquired at the front desk and were pissed when informed that the painting is actually in Den Haag - back where we had partied the night before.  Hungry, with a slightly annoying headache, I left that museum feeling tricked.  

Upon returning to Amsterdam we ate another feast in the Leidisplein.  Our drinks at the bar were jameson and jack on the rocks - Appetizers included snails in sauce and carpaccio - the main course was Dutch beefsteak and fried clams. - and The Stoop and Stoop restaurant was candlelit and had smooth hip-hop for a soundtrack.  The eats are wonderful here.

This morning I made the decision to get to that painting.  It felt like a quest after reading all the interesting notes about the artist at his old home.  It was such a tease to be built up to see something the painting and then not actually view it. So, I hopped an early train, went back out to Den Haag, and fumbled my way to the Mauritshuis. The museum was well worth it.  There were Rembrandts, many still-life works, and thankfully "The Girl With a Pearl Earring." I hate falling in love with a work that everyone else adores.  It irks me like I am sharing a girlfriend. It implies about as much contemplation as that of someone who claims Michael Jordan as their favorite basketball player.  Dare I say it can be as annoying as someone who cheers for the Red Sox. But, I admit, I might be in love with the girl in the painting.  Not in love in the Red Light District sense of the word but more enamored with the beauty of its simplicity.  The earring is cool and the lighting, for which Vermeer is praised, is obviously the stylistic accomplishment, but I think it is the black background that sets the painting apart.  Beauty contrasted against a black backdrop places all the focus on, well, the beauty.  Vermeer leaves the viewer with no other choice then to look in the eye of the mysterious girl.  Guess I will have to read the book to find out who she is fictionally.

A stroll through Den Haag, a final afternoon stroll through crazy Amsterdam on Sunday, and I now find myself doing law homework.  Tomorrow is the flight back.  I will write about the Red Light District, the coffeeshops, and my impressions of the Netherlands after I submit this brief.

I don't want to leave.