One recurring theme in Girl With a Pearl Earring is the innate artistic ability Griet possesses. From before her first encounters with Vermeer, we see her eye for detail in the precise observations of others, the way she keeps her cap starched and wears it religiously, the way she chops and arranges vegetables into a color wheel– and later, her contribution to Vermeer’s painting of van Ruijven’s wife writing with the quill. Without any formal training, she knows the painting lacks some form of disarray to catch the eye. She knows the table is too neat, and decides to change something. Such an action could come at the cost of her job, and yet she somehow has such a strong conviction that it is something that needs to be done. Chevalier weaves these hints throughout the story so that her potential is never far from the reader’s mind, yet that potential is never realized.
The thought of what Griet may have been capable of achieving, if she were a boy, crossed my mind at several points. If women had not been so limited in society, perhaps she could have become a tile painter like her father had been, or be a true apprentice to Vermeer. Instead, she had to settle for a life as the butcher’s wife– secure, but still too poor to own pearls, selling the ones Vermeer wanted her to have.