Girl+in+Hyacinth+Blue

**Girl in Hyacinth Blue** by Susan Vreeland []

I read __A Girl in Hyacinth Blue__ by Susan Vreeland. This book contains eight chapters in which each one has a different story about this specific painting of a girl wearing a blue jacket and a rusty colored skirt. It constantly goes back in history as the story goes on. The first one begins with the history behind the painting. There is a math professor by the name of Cornelius Engelbrecht who has kept the secret of a painting he has owned for decades. Cornelius believed this painting was done by the artist Vermeer. He invited his colleague, Richard, in the art department to see if he thought it was the same artist. Richard commented on how the strokes from the paint brushes were like that of Vermeer's. Cornelius wanted to know for sure who the painter was because apparently Vermeer had only less than forty works of art he ever created. This made the painting all the more valuable. When he died, most of the family, friends, and neighbors received his art. In the rest of the chapters, the story talks of different places the painting had been and the different people who had owned it. The painting lost its authenticity in chapter four when a French aristocrat named Gerard bought the painting from a Dutch noble. Gerard's wife, Claudine, ran away with it and sold it without all the documents attached to it that proved who the artist was and where it had originated. Later in the book when Vermeer passed away, his daughter sold it to the local baker. Some time after that Vermeer's daughter, Magdelena, saw a family at an auction buying a painting. She recognized immediately the girl in the Hyacinth blue jacket with the rusty colored skirt. It brought a smile to her face as she thought of her father. The story captured my interest by all the different places the painting had traveled. Sometimes it got confusing because the book was going in reverse order back to the time of the artist Vermeer. However, I thought the writer made this book come to life with her style of story telling. She helped me as a reader picture in my mind the different time periods and what they were like. I felt as if I was there when the story was being told. As an artist, I could relate to how a painting reflects the personality of the artist. All in all, this was my favorite book I read this school year! By: Katie Lee Cook
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