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

Johannes Vermeer Girl with a pearl earring is exhibited in the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1902. Although many lucky art lovers have viewed it in person, most have only seen posters and other reproductions.

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

The research involved five paintings from the Mauritshuis collection: those by Vermeer Girl with a pearl earring (circa 1665) and View of Delft (circa 1660-1666), Gerard van Honthorst The fiddler (1626), and that of Rembrandt The anatomy lesson (1632) and Self-portrait (1669).

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

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

The neuromarketing agency Neurensics conducted the study together with other neurological experts. Co-founder Martin de Munnik explains 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 greater than when seeing posters, even if they have also been viewed in the museum,” says de Munnik. Art newspaper‘s Senay Boztas. “There was a ten times greater ‘approach’ signal than with the posters.”

Viewers have long been fascinated by it Girl with a pearl earringthat sometimes 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, although the girl’s identity remains a mystery.

When Abraham Bredius, who would later become director of the Mauritshuis, viewed the painting in 1885, noted that “Vermeer overshadows the rest; the girl’s head, so beautifully modeled that you are almost inclined to forget that you are looking at a painting, and only that one point of light will hold your attention.

The new research also found this to be true: Visitors’ eyes bounced between the focal points of the painting, often starting 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 attention loop” – and the study’s volunteers were caught up in it Girl with a pearl earring longer than any other work.

Additional, Girl with a pearl earring seemed to stimulate it precuneus more than the other four paintings. The precuneus is an area of ​​the brain that encompasses a person’s sense of self, agency, and autobiographical memory.

According to the Art newspaperResearchers also measured how volunteers reacted when the glass museum elevator they were riding in came to an unexpected stop. This activity received an “attention score” of 0.44 out of 1; in comparison, look Girl with a pearl earring received a 0.48.

“If you go up in an elevator and it jerks, you get a shock… and this attracts a lot of attention, which makes sense,” de Munnik tells the publication. “Yet the Girl with a pearl calls for more attention from the brain than something that is a potential danger. … It demands your attention and, whether you want it or not, makes you search longer.’