Hi-tech scans get under skin of ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’
Alabama student names NASA’s first Mars helicopter
Researchers using a battery of modern imaging techniques have gotten under the skin of Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” but tests haven’t answered the key question about the world famous painting’s enigmatic subject.
“Who was the girl?” Martine Gosselink, Director of the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague said in an online presentation Tuesday of new research findings. “Spoiler alert: No, sadly we didn’t find out who this young lady was and if she ever really existed. But we did get a little closer to her.”
What the 2018 research project did uncover were details including how the Golden Age Dutch master painted the girl and where he got his pigments.
They even confirmed once and for all that the girl has eyelashes and revealed that she is painted in front of a green curtain that has faded from view. Such is the interest in the painting, that even the subject’s facial hair — or apparent lack of it — is the subject of academic debate.
The eyelashes weren’t the only hairs researchers found. Microscopic scans also revealed tiny fragments from Vermeer’s paintbrushes embedded in the girl’s skin.
The painting was placed in a purpose-built glass room in early 2018 so visitors to the museum could watch as researchers and their hi-tech machines took what amounted to a fullbody scan of the work completed by Vermeer around 1665, which is sometimes referred to as the Dutch “Mona Lisa.”
The public, however, will have to wait until they can see the museum’s star painting in real life. The Mauritshuis, along with all other Dutch museums and galleries, is closed due to restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
The research findings, however, were being placed online, along with explanations from those involved.
Among them, scans that mapped the maze of tiny cracks that have formed in the paint over the years. They will allow the museum to use this research as a baseline to monitor the health of the canvas in coming years.
Analysis of microscopic paint samples was able to pinpoint where the pigments Vermeer used originated. The white lead that forms the earring comes from the Peak District in northern England, the ultramarine blue is ground from lapis lazuli found in what is now Afghanistan and the red is cochineal, made from bugs that live on cactus plants in Mexico and South America.
“It’s surprising how much high quality ultramarine Vermeer used in the girl’s headscarf,” said conservator and project leader Abbie Vandivere. “This blue pigment was more valuable than gold in the 17th century.”
Vermeer, however, didn’t have to scour the world to get his materials, he most likely bought them in his hometown of Delft.
The findings don’t just reveal details about Vermeer’s materials, “but also tell us about Dutch and world trade in the 17th century,” Vandivere said.
Research also uncovered the order in which he painted the girl on a woven canvas with a gray base layer.
As if looking over Vermeer’s shoulder while he was working, research with infrared imaging showed that he began composing the work in shades of brown and black. He then drew the girl’s outline in black lines before working from the green background to the foreground: The skin of her face, her yellow jacket, white collar, blue headscarf and finally the quick dabs of white that make up the pearl. Finally, he signed the top left of the canvas.
“The girl has, sadly, not revealed her identity, but we have got to know her better,” Gosselink said.
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NORTHPORT, Ala.: An Alabama high school student named NASA’s first Mars helicopter that will be deployed to the Red Planet later this summer.
Ingenuity, the name submitted by Vaneera Rupani, was selected for the 4 pound (1.8 kilograms) solar-powered helicopter, NASA said in a statement on Wednesday. The name coined by the junior at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport was just one of the 28,000 names that were submitted during NASA’s “Name the Rover” essay contest for K-12 students across the United States.
“The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration,” Rupani wrote in her essay. “Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe.”
In March, the organization selected the name “Perseverance” for the Mars Rover based on a Virginian student’s essay, but decided to come back to the submitted essays to also pick a name for the helicopter that will accompany the Rover on the trip to the planet.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine then selected Rupani’s name for the helicopter, noting that the name “encapsulates the values that our helicopter tech demo will showcase” when it takes off to Mars. Alabama Sen Richard Shelby also congratulated Rupani for the honor.
“It was really cool I got to be a part of something like this,” she told the AP.
Ingenuity, which will be deployed to Mars attached to the “Perseverance” Rover in July or August, has already completed testing in a NASA simulation chamber in Southern California. After it arrives on Mars, NASA said the helicopter will maintain a cover to be protected from debris until the timing is right for the aircraft to operate on the planet by itself.
If Ingenuity is successful during its 31-day experimental trip, the small helicopter will prove that powered flights can be accomplished on Mars, NASA said. This year’s mission to Mars is part of a program that also includes missions to the moon to prepare for a possible human exploration of the Red Planet, NASA said. (AP)