Girl with a Pearl Earring

In case you missed it, there’s been a renaissance of sorts on a small scale to recreate old paintings with new themes. I have a hard time liking a version better than the ones created by artist Jenny Boot. I love both versions of Girl with a Pearl Earring equally for completely different reasons. I highly recommend switching back and forth between the original by Vermeer and the new version by Jenny Booth.

Vermeer’s Girl has a playful look, on the cusp of smiling. Jenny’s is serious. While Vermeer shows us a painting we see in awe of his painting skill, I think Jenny shows us a powerful image we have a hard time looking away from for contextual reasons. We see an obvious play on racial tension when we go from an excellently painted colorful fair skinned woman to an excellently shot dark photo with a strong young black woman unabashedly staring back at us.

I get the feeling of catching Vermeer’s Girl in the act of looking over her shoulder while I get a permanence and staying power from the new version.

I love Vermeer’s work for the pure awesomeness of the work. I love Boot’s work for the smart powerful use of a simple color palette and a simple pose to make us think of our own past, present and future.

Boot plays with this theme in many more photos. I recommend checking into her other works. She certainly inspires me to look at the past in a new light. It leaves me wondering how I can look at past furniture works and create something out of them that’s entirely new and in an entirely new context.