2021 - Who is the Girl Now?

When you leave the arrivals hall at Schiphol airport you are greeted by the Girl while you wait for your taxi or your bus. She is no doubt part of the tourist’s ‘must-see’ list. She is on tote bags, t-shirts, and mugs, and has even been morphed into a rubber duck at the museum gift shop. She is definitely a fixture in the Dutch identity that will not fade away soon. What does this mean for the modern Girl and how we view the appropriation of her image in today’s world?

Because her identity is so malleable and iconic, it is easy (and sometimes essential) to use her image to serve a particular narrative. But beyond her role in many instances in creating a Dutch identity, she represents a hybridity in Dutch culture that many still hesitate to admit and to acknowledge. Perhaps she might still play a role—almost four centuries after Vermeer first painted her—in recontextualising Dutch cultural identity as more than self-contained but instead accepting and incorporating influences from others. Until then, we remain in her knowing gaze, her pearl shining through all she was and all she will be.