Words from pictures

    In this short talk, novelist Tracy Chevalier explains why she is selective when it comes to studying pictures, how the 'what if ...?' questions those images spark open up possibilities, and thus how she finds the story inside a painting. Simple!

                                            ~~~~~

    Tracy Chevalier was the subject of a 'have you read ...?' post last year.

Comments

[Lindsay]

I enjoyed Girl With A Pearl Earring when I read it a few years ago, though one has to continually remind oneself that it is principally a work of fiction and imagination. But earlier this year I had the opportunity of visiting the Mauritshuis in the Hague, where the picture hangs. (I was lucky, I was there the week before the museum - one of the most delightful I have ever visited - closed for a couple of years for restoration, though some major pictures are on show elsewhere: http://www.mauritshuis.nl/index.aspx?chapterID=9015).

The painting is mesmerising and wholly wonderful. I stood in front of it for 20 minutes, and each time I moved on, was drawn back again and again. Chevalier's book is a pleasant diversion for an hour or so, but Vermeer's painting is a masterwork of limpid, expressive beauty.

[Freda]

I have so enjoyed these links - thank you. I also enjoyed the film 'Girl With A Pearl Earring' immensely - I thought it beautifully done.

[Cornflower]

Thankyou for the link, Lindsay. Your reaction to the painting was the same as Tracy Chevalier's (see talk); she goes on to say there that the comparative lack of hard fact about Vermeer allowed her to invent a story around the painting.

[Cornflower]

Coincidentally, I saw the film again last night - it is beautiful!