An artwork inspired by Johannes’s Vermeer painting ‘The girl with the pearl earring’. Many people compared her enigmatic expression with Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. This painting though, is not a portrait but a tronie, a Dutch term for a character or type of person. A young woman might have sat for Vermeer, but the painting is not meant to portray her or any specific individual in the same way that Leonardo’s piece portrayed an existing person. Vermeer’s subject is a generic young woman.
Our version was based on the idea of the earring being the focal point of the painting, instead of the girl’s beauty and distinct expression. Therefore, we replaced the pearl earring with a big eye which captures the viewer, becoming the protagonist of the piece, rather than the actual person.
