Seeing Vermeer’s ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ in Person Stimulates the Brain More Than Looking at Reprints, Study Suggests

Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring has been on display at the Mauritshuis museum in the Hague since 1902. While many lucky art lovers have examined it in person, most have seen only posters and other reproductions.

However, a new study suggests that these experiences may be quite different. Scientists found that viewers’ emotional responses were ten times stronger when examining an original painting than when viewing a copy, according to a statement from the museum, which commissioned the research.

The study involved five paintings in the Mauritshuis’ collections: Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring (circa 1665) and View of Delft (circa 1660-1666), Gerard van Honthorst’s The Violin Player (1626), and Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson (1632) and Self-Portrait (1669).

Researchers used electroencephalogram (EEG) headsets and eye trackers to measure the brain activity of 20 volunteers, who viewed the five original paintings in the museum and five reproductions on posters in the gift shop.

Another group of volunteers (which included five subjects from the first phase) looked at reproductions of the paintings while inside a functional MRI machine, which measured their brain activity.

The neuromarketing agency Neurensics conducted the research alongside other neurological experts. Co-founder Martin de Munnik tells Agence France-Presse that this was the first known study to use EEG and MRI brain scanning technologies to measure neurological responses to art.

“With the EEG, you see that the positive effect of the real work is much bigger than with seeing posters, even though they were viewed in the museum too,” de Munnik tells the Art Newspaper’s Senay Boztas. “There was a ten times greater ‘approach’ signal than with the posters.”

Viewers have long been captivated by Girl With a Pearl Earring, which is sometimes called the “Mona Lisa of the North.” The piece is known for its use of light, which draws attention to the subject’s face, lips and infamous earring. Recent research has revealed new information about Vermeer’s techniques, though the girl’s identity remains a mystery.

Upon viewing the painting in 1885, Abraham Bredius, who would later become the director of the Mauritshuis, noted that “Vermeer overshadows all the rest; the girl’s head, so superbly modeled that one is almost inclined to forget one is looking at a painting, and that single gleam of light, will alone hold your attention.”

The new research also found this to be true: Visitors’ eyes bounced between the painting’s focal points, often beginning with the girl’s eyes and mouth, then switching to the pearl, returning to the eyes, and so on. Researchers call this phenomenon a “sustained attentional loop”—and the study’s volunteers were caught in it, viewing Girl With a Pearl Earring for longer than any of the other works.

Additionally, Girl With a Pearl Earring appeared to stimulate the precuneus more than the other four paintings. The precuneus is a region of the brain that involves a person’s sense of self, agency and autobiographical memory.

According to the Art Newspaper, researchers also measured how volunteers responded when the glass museum lift they were riding in came to an unexpected stop. This activity received an “attention” score of 0.44 out of 1; in comparison, viewing Girl With a Pearl Earring received a 0.48.

“If you go up in a lift and it jolts, you have a shock… and this draws a lot of attention, which is logical,” de Munnik tells the publication. “Even so, the Girl With a Pearl evokes more brain attention than something that is a potential danger. … It demands your attention and, whether you want to or not, makes you look for longer.”

Olatunji Osho-Williams | READ MORE

Olatunji Osho-Williams is an intern with Smithsonian magazine.