Composition and Pose

Although both pose and composition of the Girl with a Pearl Earring are so natural as to go almost unnoticed, they are  fundamental elements in achieving the expressive qualities the artist desired. The turning gesture of the sitter that Vermeer employed, was pictorial device which was exploited by the great Italian master Michelangelo Buonarotti and was widely used in the figurative art.

Michelangelo understood that when a figure's body was represented as moving in one direction and the head as moving in the opposite direction, the contraposition evokes tension. The body represents instinctual impulses while the head embodies the higher function of the mind and spirit. The effect is particularly pronounced in Michelangelo's work since the entire body, which is often represented nude, is portrayed.

Vermeer, however,  employed same pictorial device in the Girl with a Pearl Earring but in a much less marked way in order to convey a more subtle psychological tone. His aim was not to express the universal struggle between the flesh and the spirit, a theme with deep religious moral overtones, but a more private one of the uncertain relationship between the painter and his model. Through the tension created by the positions of the head and bust alone, Vermeer has made us aware of the young girl's psyche.

Since Vermeer painted four women with their lips partially opened, he must have been very aware of the effect it created. It is very rare to find portraits of the age in which the sitters' mouth are not dutifully closed. The sensuous undertone of such an expression may have appeared far more noticeable than it does today. Bernini's portrait of Costanza Bonelli is a rare portrait which shows the sitter with parted lips. This may not be casual. Costanza was the wife of Matteo Bonarelli, one of Bernini's pupils and co-workers. Bernini fell passionately in love with her.

The rarity of this kind of expression in contemporary portraiture may lead us to believe that the painting, in fact, was not intended as a true portrait, but rather as a tronie in which the sitter's exotic costume or particular expression was the painting's true subject. For further information on the question, see Portrait or "Tronie"?.

In nine of Vermeer's paintings, the sitter's look directly in the eyes of the viewer as in the Girl with a Pearl Earring. This convention was universally employed to engage the viewer more effectively in a dialogue with the painting. Vermeer intensified the effect by eliminating the background making it difficult for the viewer to direct his attention to another part of the painting except the fall of light on the sitter's expression.

Composition

While "pose" refers to the gesture of the sitter within the inferred three dimensional space of the picture, "composition" refers to the two dimensional organization of the painting. In Vermeer's art composition played a fundamental role in determining the expressive content of his complex interiors. Although the Girl with a Pearl Earring is perhaps one of the simplest of all his works, it is  nonetheless composed in a very subtle manner.

Vermeer's painting is consciously organized around a series of axis's. The most pronounced one describes the gesture of the girl, it runs from the shadow of the girl's temple down through to her left shoulder. The vertical axis of the painting, that serves as an visual anchor, begins at the highest point of  the turban and runs directly through the pearl earring down along the net vertical division of dark and illuminated sides of the yellow garment. A third axis follows the fall of the turban and further stabilizes the girl's movement. Thus, while introducing  diagonal lines to suggest movement and psychological potential of the sitter, Vermeer subtly balances them within a stable context of an overall pyramidal form.

The effectiveness of Vermeer's pose and composition can be better appreciated they are compared to those of a portrait painted by a contemporary of Vermeer.

When compared side by side to Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring,  the young woman in Frans Van Mieris'  portrait seems isolated and distant. Although she is beautifully and meticulously rendered, Vermeer's girl appears more real. The viewer senses the physical and psychological presence of Vermeer's girl because she occupies more of the picture plane and thus appears nearer to the viewer. She positively inhabits and activates the pictorial space which surrounds her, rather than being passively incapsuled  by it.

In Van Mieris' painting, the so-called "negative space" surrounding the figure is equally undifferentiated on both sides. In Vermeer 's painting instead, the two negative spaces are varied and visually stimulating.  On the right Vermeer has created an  angular wedge which is completely different in size and character from the much larger one to the left.

Vermeer may not have arrived alone at such a pictorial solution. A portrait of Beatrice Cenci by Guido Reni 1 had been noticed in the earlier part of the century for the startling  similarity of pose and gesture. Although it is not know if Vermeer had ever been to Italy or had access to the engraved image, it is not out of the question. The Beatrice Cenci was copied many times and engravings of popular paintings circulated freely throughout Europe. Such engravings  often served as models for new compositions.