Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Girl with a Pearl Earring


Author Tracy Chevalier came up with the idea for the novel in November 1997 while she was looking at a poster of Johannes Vermeer'sGirl with a Pearl Earring, which bought poster when she was nineteen years old and hung wherever she lived over the next sixteen years. Chevalier notes that the "ambiguous look" on the girl's face left the "most lasting impression" on her. She describes the girl's expression "to be a mass of contradictions: innocent yet experienced, joyous yet tearful, full of longing and yet full of loss." She began to think that the girl had directed all these emotions at the painter, and began to think of the "story behind that look".

Chevalier did historical research for the novel through reading history books, studying Vermeer's and his peers' paintings, and spending several days in Delft.She was pregnant while researching and writing the novel, and finished writing it within eight months because she had a "biological deadline".


download HERE

0 comments:

Post a Comment