Girl with a Pearl Earring

1147 Words3 Pages

“You smell of linseed oil.”
My father spoke in a baffled tone. He did not believe that simply cleaning a painter’s studio would make the smell linger on my clothes, my skin, my hair. He was right. It was as if he guessed that I now slept with the oil in my room, that I sat for hours being painted and absorbing the scent. He guessed and yet he could not say. His blindness took away his confidence so he did not trust the thoughts in his mind.
A year before I might have tried to help him, suggest what he was thinking, humor him into speaking his mind. Now, however, I simply watched him struggle silently, like a beetle that has fallen on its back and cannot turn itself over. Sometimes it is best not to tell my family, sometimes, it is best to leave them in the dark, searching for something they believe is there, sometimes, it is simply easier.
My mother had also guessed, though she did not know what she had guessed. Sometimes I could not even meet her eye. When I did her look was a puzzle of anger held back, of curiosity, of hurt. She was trying to understand what had happened to her daughter. She was second-guessing her decision to allow me to work as a maid in the Vermeer household.
I had grown used to the smell of linseed oil. I even kept a small bottle of it by my bed. In the mornings when I was getting dressed I held it up to the window to admire the color, which was like lemon juice with a drop of lead-tin yellow in it. I wear that color now, I wanted to say. He is painting me that color.
Instead, to take my father’s mind off the smell, I described the other painting my master was working on. “A young woman sits at a harpsichord, playing. She is wearing a yellow and black bodice—the same the baker’s daughter wore for her pa...

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... the present, watching my father again, if he knew, if any of them knew, what would they think?

Works Cited

“Artist’s Paints.” Earth Pigments.com. Earth’s Pigments Supplies, n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2010. http://www.earthpigments.com/artists-oil-paints/ “How to Make Oil Paint.” Printmaking.com. Johansen, Tony, n.d. Web. 13 Jul. 2006. http://www.paintmaking.com/grinding_oils.htm "Johannes Vermeer.” rijksmuseum. National Gallery, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2009. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/explore-the-collection/overview/johannes-vermeer "Johannes Vermeer (Dutch Painter)." Encyclopedia Britannica. Demand Media, Wheelock,
Arthur K. Web. 24 Jan. 2014. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/626156/Johannes-Vermeer “The Concert: 1665-1666.” Vermeer Foundation.com. Vermeer Foundation Gallery, n.d. Web.
03 Aug. 2002. http://www.vermeer-foundation.org/The-Concert-1665-66.html

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