Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

household, where eventually she becomes the model for that painting. The novel,
told in the first person, centers on the servant girl Griet’s private thoughts and
domestic troubles, and moments of descriptive and interpretive ekphrasis in the
novel generally occur in intimate, private moments. Susan Vreeland’s Girl in
Hyacinth Blue deals with an imagined Vermeer. 204 A math teacher claims to own
an unknown Vermeer, and in order to substantiate his claim for its authenticity,
the novel traces the painting from the present day to its conception in the 1670s in
seven separate stories connected only by the painting. As a whole, the novel
focuses on the history and pedigree of the painting (and the girl in the painting)
vis-à-vis its role in the life of its predominantly female owners.
Both these novels have been filmed recently (2003), and both films have
made significant changes to the story, which shift the emphasis to a socio-political
dimension that is subtler in the novels. Moreover, in both films ekphrasis becomes
a tool to demonstrate male power rather than female self-realization. Peter
Webber’s film Girl with a Pearl Earring condenses and deletes scenes and
changes the function and setting of the paintings, the point of view and types of
the ekphrases, as well as the relationship between Vermeer (Colin Firth) and the
maid Griet (Scarlett Johansson). 205 Through these alterations, the film shifts its
focus from a young girl’s evolving consciousness to the class and power relations
in the story. Here ekphrasis functions either as precarious bridge or as clash
204 Susan Vreeland, Girl in Hyacinth Blue (Denver: MacMurray & Beck, 1999).
205 Girl with a Pearl Earring, dir. Peter Webber, perf. Colin Firth, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom
Wilkinson, DVD, Lions Gate Home Entertainment, 2003.
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