Scripta 9_2_link_final.pdf - Uniandrade

Soon it became easier to keep my eyes on his. He looked at me as if he were
not seeing me, but someone else, or something else – as if he were looking
at a painting.
He is looking at the light that falls on my face, I thought, not at my face
itself. That is the difference.
It was almost as if I were not there. Once I felt this I was able to relax a little.
As he was not seeing me, I did not see him. My mind began to wander –
over the jugged hare we had eaten for dinner, the lace collar Lisbeth had
given me, a story Pieter the son had told me the day before. After that I
thought of nothing. (CHEVALIER, 1999, p. 180)
Griet only agrees to pierce her ears after Vermeer shows her the
work in progress. She continues the description:
The painting was like none of his others. It was just of me, of my head and
shoulders, with no tables or curtains, no windows or powder-brushes to
soften and distract. He had painted me with my eyes wide, the light falling
across my face but the left side of me in shadow. I was wearing blue and
yellow and brown. The cloth wound round my head made me look not like
myself, but like Griet from another town, even from another country
altogether. The background was black, making me appear very much alone,
although I was clearly looking at someone. I seemed to be waiting for
something I did not think would ever happen.
He was right – the painting might satisfy van Ruijven, but something was
missing from it. (CHEVALIER, 1999, p. 191)
One afternoon while Catharina is out, Maria Thins lends the pair
of earrings to Griet and asks her help to have the painting finished as soon
as possible. Vermeer includes the earring in the portrait. Griet asks him to
place the jewel in her ears. Griet leaves the studio, without even taking a last
look at the canvas, and proudly returns the earrings to her mistress. After
all, she had accomplished the task.
Scripta Uniandrade, v. 9, n. 2, jul.-dez. 2011
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