Girl in Hyacinth Blue: Summary 5

When I read the rest of Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland, I thought that it was a great way to end the book. I finally found out the whole story and journey of the painting. It started off with an artist named Johannes. He went over to his friend Pieter Claesz van Ruijven's house, which had a ton of art in it since Pieter was an artist. Pieter was deciding on what to paint next. Pieter insisted on painting another portrait of a girl alone in a room, but Johannes thought that there was too much of that already. Johannes said,"Why does the world need another painting of a woman alone in a room? Or a hundred more paintings?" Pieter replied, "The world doesn't know that it needs yet," (page 204.) On leaving Pieter's house, Jan (Johannes) bumps into his second oldest daughter Magdalena. She was going to the town walls, and she asked her father to join her. He refused, and started to think about how he lived "badly," and did not appreciate the time spent with her. Instead, he bought a pitcher to bring home. When he got home, he saw his whole family in a riot with his uncle beating his oldest daughter, Catharina, with a stick and his other children screaming. I guess that the uncle was crazy, because when asked what happened, he talked about the "she-devil." That is when Magdalena came in, and Jan was in awe. "She stood before him as if offered by God. The blue cloth of her smock draped like billowy sky. There was something in this girl he could never grasp, an inner life inscrutable to him....Was it possible to paint with good conscience what he didn't understand?" (pages 220-221.) This is the point in the story where we realize that Magdalena is the girl in the painting, and that she is the one who changed so many people's lives by just looking at the painting: the painting that told how life is. "That stillness today, he thought, might be all he would ever know of the Kingdom of Heaven." (page 223.) And that is when Johannes realized that Pieter was right, and that there might be room for another painting of a girl sitting in a room. The last chapter in the book was all about the girl in the marvelous painting: Magdalena. Growing up, she always wished to paint with as much grace as her father did. She never thought that she was beautiful, either, which was wrong because so many people loved how she looked. She always thought that so many people, in the paintings especially, were so much more pretty than she was, and had so much more meaning: "She thought of all the paintings she has seen...Their eyes, the particular turn of a head, their loneliness or suffering or grief was borrowed by an artist to be seen by other people throughout the years who would never see them face to face. People who would be that close to her, she thought, a matter of a few arms' lengths, looking, looking, and they would never know her." (page 242.) This is very ironic because Magdalena is feeling the same way about the people she sees in paintings that people in the future feel about the painting with her in it. That just makes you feel that even if you feel alone, you are not alone, because there is always someone feeling the same way that you do; even in paintings. That just makes you feel all warm and full inside to know that. This painting affected so many people, from Cornelius to Hannah to Laurens to Digna to Claudine to Saskia, and they all felt the same exact way that Magdalena felt. That is just extraordinary to think about something like that; that you are never alone. And it turns out, that after all those people unknowing of the maker of this work of art, the painting was a Vermeer. This is because Vermeer's first name was Johannes, and Johannes was the man who painted the portrait. Isn't that just a cool way of ending a story? To find out something that you have been searching for throughout the entire novel? I thought that this was a fantastic book, and it taught me how so many people feel the same way about things, and that you are never alone in the world. I enjoyed reading this alot, so thank you for having us do this assignment.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue: Summary 4

When I read the next 48 pages of Girl In Hyacinth Blue, I thought that Susan Vreeland did a good job on continuing the story. I left off when a woman named Saskia and her family found the painting in a boat with a baby. Saskia's husband, Stijn wanted to sell the painting because their family was running low on money. So one day, Saskia went to a shop to try and sell the painting, but the salesman only would give her 25 guilders for it, and since it was worth more than that to her, she did not take the deal. She went to another shop who told her that the famous artist van der Meer was really named Vermeer, which is what we have been trying to uncover throughout the whole story. The shopkeeper from the second shop told Saskia that it was a Vermeer and "You take this painting to Amsterdam. It'll fetch a far sight more there than I can pay. Or anyone in Groningen. Take it to the shops along the Rokin. Accept nothing less than eighty guilders." (pg 134) Saskia thought that this was a big deal because eighty guilders was a lot of money. Yet, she did not know if she wanted to sell it yet. So when she arrived home, she hung the painting back on the wall. She knew that Stijn would be mad that she kept it, so she made a plan that when he asked how much it was worth, she would tell him that it was only 4 guilders. But when they were in bed that night, it was dark (of course) and since she could admit things in the dark, she told him the truth about orphaning the painting. That is when the family decided that they were going to go to Amsterdam. Saskia finally sold the painting to a shop owner in Amsterdam for 75 guilders. " It wasn't eighty, but it was still victory." (pg 154) The next scene of the story was about a young girl. She seemed like the kind of girl that all the guys want. That is all that I got up to in the story, though. This story has a very unique way of being told backwards, and i find it very interesting. It is kind of like that episode of Seinfield where the whole episode was told backwards. It is a really cool view on what happened in a story. It is kind of confusing at the beginning of each chapter because you have to start fresh with new characters and new scenery, but once you get going, it makes perfect sense. I am really enjoying this story just because it is really interesting to see all these different people have this painting, and how it gets passed down, but also how they each admire the painting in a different way. This story is very interesting so far.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue: Summary 3

When I read the next 48 pages of Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland, (144 pages total,) I thought that it was very interesting to see who had the painting next. It started off with a young woman named Claudine. She was married to this man named Gerard who at one point slept with another woman. You see, Claudine was forced to marry Gerard, but she did not really love him, and when she and Gerard went to see a concert, they both found themselves sleeping with other people. Now, Gerard gave the painting of the girl to Claudia a while before this, but when she realized that both of them would get in trouble for sleeping with other people, she had to sell the painting for money to move away with. " Trying not to look, I wrapped it in muslin the next morning and called for a carriage. The papers, which Gerard kept in his strongbox, I would have to do without." (pg 105.) She sold the painting for 24 guilders, (not enough for a carriage,) and escaped the country to France. When Claudine left the country, she was not sad for Gerard, or the person who she slept with, Monsieur le C, but for the painting. The next scene took place at a farm. There was a woman named Saskia who was a mother and a wife to a man named Stijn. One night, they saw something floating in the water from the flood that happened two days before and went out in their boat to go get it. When they reached the objects, they found not only the painting, but a baby also. On the back of the painting it stated: "Sell the painting. Feed the child." (pg 114). But Saskia did not sell the painting. She kept it hidden to not remind Stijn to sell it, and only admired it when he was not home. Stijn hears about a wild witch murder incident and starts to think that the baby is the murderer's son. I think that this story is moving along very fast-pased, even though this was the slowest part of the story that I have read so far. It is really cool to see how each owner thinks that the painting was painted by someone different and how each owner has a encounter with something in the color of hyacinths. Claudine wanted hyacinths at her encounter with Monsieur le C, and the baby that Saskia found was wearing a hyacinth-colored blanket. Each main character in these 48 pages, Claudine and Saskia, do not want to part with the painting. They each find themselves in the painting, just like the characters from other chapters. Saskia even wants her daughter, Marta, to be just like the girl in the painting when she grows up. It is really interesting to see how just a painting could change a person's life this much and make this much of a difference. I am looking forward to reading more of this novel.