Scripta 9_2_link_final.pdf - Uniandrade

with the same title based on Vermeer’s painting blending fiction, his life and
other historical facts. This kind of literary work, in which “a work of art or
the figure of an artist – painter, sculptor, musician, it does not matter – is
the backbone element” 2 (OLIVEIRA, 1993, p. 40) of the novel, is known
as Künstlerroman. The Künstlerroman or the novel of the artist, from the
German Künstler meaning “artist” and Roman meaning “novel”, was
developed in Germany in the 19th century and became a mode of literary
representation of the artist. According to Linda Hutcheon, this literary
tradition came “out of the Bildungsroman 3 [...] with its preoccupation with
the growth of the artist” (HUTCHEON, 1984, p. 12), in which the internal
creative experience is filtered through the character or the narrator.
Solange Oliveira explains that the Künstlerroman is a narrative in which
aesthetic and technical aspects are part of the plot, and the creative artistic
solutions affect other aspects of the artist’s life. Moreover, she defines as
Künstlerroman “any kind of narrative in which the figure of the artist or a
piece of artwork, real or fictitious, plays an essential structural role, also
encompassing literary works which pursue a stylistic equivalent based on
the other arts” 4 (OLIVEIRA, 1993, p. 05). Oliveira calls attention to how
helpful it is to delve into the relationship between literature and the other
arts in Horace’s ut pictura poesis tradition (OLIVEIRA, 1993, p. 05-06), so
that literary criticism can be enriched by borrowing semiotic elements from
the different art forms. We shall see Künstlerroman qualities in the study of
the protagonist of Girl with a Pearl Earring, who is not the master Vermeer,
but his assistant and muse, the maid Griet. The novel is told in the first
person by Griet who as narrator both plays the role of the author of the
narrative and functions as Vermeer’s collaborator.
In the painting there are only two characters, the model and the
painter. There is no historical account of this specific model as it happens
with the models of several other oil paintings, but only speculations about
who she could have been.
Chevalier, chooses to create a fictional character, Griet, a Dutch
Protestant teenager who becomes a maid in the house of the painter Johannes
Vermeer. Her calm and perceptive manner not only helps her in her
household duties, but also attracts the painter’s attention. Though different
in upbringing, education and social standing, they have a similar way of
looking at things.
The two main characters first meet at Griet’s house while she is
preparing some salad. Her awareness of color in doing such an ordinary
Scripta Uniandrade, v. 9, n. 2, jul.-dez. 2011
12