The Power of Art Theme Analysis

I was about to blow out the candle when I noticed the painting hanging at the foot of my bed. I sat up, wide awake now. It was another picture of Christ on the Cross, smaller than the one upstairs but even more disturbing. Christ had thrown his head back in pain, and Mary Magdalene’s eyes were rolling. I lay back gingerly, unable to take my eyes off it. I could not imagine sleeping in the room with the painting. Finally I blew out the candle—I could not afford to waste candles on my first day in the new house. I lay back again, my eyes fixed to the place where I knew the painting hung.

Maria Thins seemed content to stand with me and contemplate the painting. It was odd to look at it with the setting just behind it. Already from my dusting I knew all of the objects on the table, and their relation to one another—the letter by the corner, the powder-brush lying casually next to the pewter bowl, the blue cloth bunched around the dark pot. Everything seemed to be exactly the same, except cleaner and purer. It made a mockery of my own cleaning.

Then I saw a difference. I drew in my breath.

“What is it, girl?”

“In the painting there are no lion heads on the chair next to the woman.”

“No. There was once a lute sitting on that chair as well. He makes plenty of changes. He doesn’t paint just what he sees, but what will suit.”

“But you have been in his studio— [but] you told us […] nothing about the painting he is working on. Describe it to me.”

“I don’t know if I can in such a way that you will be able to see it.”

“Try. […] It will give me pleasure to imagine a painting by a master, even if my mind creates a poor imitation.”

So I tried to describe the woman tying pearls around her neck, her hands suspended, gazing at herself in the mirror, the light from the window bating her face and her yellow mantle, the dark foreground that separated her from us.

My father listened intently, but his own face was not illuminated until I said, “The light on the back wall is so warm that looking at it feels the way the sun feels on your face.”

He nodded and smiled, please now that he understood.

“But why do you look at it, sir, when you can look at your own painting?”

“You do not understand. […] This is a tool. I use it to help me see, so that I am able to make the painting.”

“But—you use your eyes to see.”

“True, but my eyes do not always see everything […] Tell me, Griet,” he continued, “do you think I simply paint what is there in that corner? […] The camera obscura helps me to see in a different way,” he explained. “To see more of what is there.”

When he saw the baffled expression on my face he must have regretted saying so much to someone like me. He turned and snapped the box shut. […]

“Sir—”

“Thank you, Griet,” he said as he took it from me. “Have you finished with the cleaning here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You may go, then.”

Great wheels of Gouda and Edam arrived, and artichokes and oranges and lemons and grapes and plums, and almonds and hazelnuts. Even a pineapple was sent, gift of a wealthy cousin of Maria Thins. I had never seen one before, and was not tempted by its rough, prickly skin. It was not for me to eat, anyway. None of the food was, except for the od taste Tanneke allowed us. She let me try a tiny bit of caviar, which I liked less than I admitted, for all its luxury, and some of the sweet wine, which was wonderfully spiced with cinnamon.

When I was done I looked up at him.

“Tell me, Griet, why did you change the tablecloth?” His tone was the same as when he had asked me about the vegetables at my parents’ house.

I thought for a moment. “There needs to be some disorder in the scene, to contrast with her tranquility,” I explained. “Something to tease the eye. And yet it must be something pleasing to the eye as well, and it is, because the cloth and her arm are in a similar position.”

There was a long pause. He was gazing at the table. I waited, wiping my hands on my apron.

“I had not thought I would learn something from a maid,” he said at last.

“You watch out for yourself, my dear.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“You must know that he’s painting you to satisfy van Ruijven. Van Ruijven’s interest in you has made your master protective of you.”

I nodded, secretly pleased to hear what I had suspected.

“Do not get caught in their battle. You could be hurt.”

[…] “I do not think he would ever hurt me, sir.”

“Tell me, my dear, how much do you know of men?”

[…] I did not answer.

“He is an exceptional man,” van Leeuwenhoek continued. “His eyes are worth a roomful of gold. But sometimes he sees the world only as he wants it to be, not as it is. He does not understand the consequences for others of his point of view. He thinks only of himself and his work, not of you.”

He sat for a long time, mixing colors on his palette with his palette knife. There was red and ocher there, but the paint he was mixing was mostly white, to which he added daubs of black, working them together slowly and carefully, the silver diamond of the knife flashing in the grey paint.

“Sir?” I began.

He looked up at me, his knife stilled.

“I have seen you paint sometimes without the model being here. Could you not paint the earring without me wearing it?”

The palette knife remained still. “You would like me to imagine you wearing the pearl, and paint what I imagine?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked down at the paint, the palette knife moving again. I think he smiled a little. “I want to see you wear the earring.”

“But you know what will happen then, sir.”

“I know the painting will be complete.”