neuroscientists have unraveled the mystery of Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring”

When neuroscience meets Flemish painting… Scientists think they have unlocked the secret of “The Girl with the Pearl Earring” by Vermeer: ​​it literally takes hostages the spectators who come to admire it in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague in the Netherlands.

Staring at the viewer with her head turned to her left, while perhaps writing or sewing, the Girl with the Pearl Earring does more than capture the viewer’s gaze. She literally captures his brain, locking him in a loop delimited by his eye, his mouth, the famous pearl, and his eye again. A “sustained attention loop”, as the neuroscientists at the company Neurensics who studied it call it, which forces the viewer to pay attention, whether they want to or not.

According to their in-depth investigations, carried out using electrodes placed on the skulls of around ten volunteers to measure their brain activity, the original exhibited in the Netherlands produces much more effect than any poster or reproduction of the painting. An experiment whose results will perhaps open the way to the study of other paintings and the fascination they exert among the public. Particularly the Mona Lisa, with her look and her smile.