“A MAID CAME FREE:” FROM SIGHTING TO CITING IN TRACY CHEVALIER’S GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

Tracy Chevalier’s ekphrastic novel Girl with a Pearl Earring explores the relationship between literature and art, as it narrates Jan Vermeer’s paintings from the perspective of the story’s narrator, Griet, who works as a maid in the Vermeers' house. In her fictional account, Griet gradually becomes the painter’s assistant as well as his model, and subverts the gender issues in ekphrasis; the silent and gazed-upon female image in the eponymous painting gains a voice to critique Vermeer’s art. In this presentation, Prof. Dr. Ozlem Uzundemir from Cankaya University, Turkiye will explore Griet’s transformation from a young maid into an art critic with respect to the issues in painting, namely color, light, and realistic representation, as well as the paragon between the viewing subject and the viewed object in ekphrasis.