Copyright © David G. Wilson
Acrylic on Canvas; 2011, Collection of the artist.
Warning
This painting and text are published via this medium only for the intellectual edification of the general public . No unauthorized commercial use is allowed without expressed written permission.
Since 1980, after having read a passage written by Leonardo da Vinci suggesting:
"if the artist wishes to enhance his faculties for creative invention, he may look at even a stain on the wall and therein he might perceive whatever he wishes to see."
Since that date, I have taken the liberty to scrutinize many an old master painting, looking for alternative realities therein. In them, I have discovered a plethora of hidden images which, I am certain, were not intentionally incorporated by the original artists. Hence, I have reconfigured those images to depict the alternative realities that my mind's eye perceives within them.
Looking at Vermeer's masterpiece, "The Girl with a Pearl Earring", I distinctly perceive a barren little hill, upon the slope of which there are two cottages. In the middle ground, I perceived a woman dressed in a hooded red cloak walking toward one of the cottages. There is also an old copper water cistern, dating from the days of slavery, full of water. A road descends from the hill towards the house within whose threshold the viewer stands. The road suddenly deviates away from the house towards the right. One can see a lamp post that stands along the road and mimics her ear. It is truncated by the balustrade of the stairs and the golden orb that tops it. The doorway of the house reveals an arched entrance and marble steps upon which the aforementioned hooded figure has deposited a laden white bag. In the distance, the cumulonimbus clouds billow skywards to complete my perception of the alterative realities that occupy the same three dimensional terrestrial space as Vermeer's "Girl with the Pearl Earring." © David G. Wilson