Portret van een zittend meisje in witte jurk 1903 - 1940

Jan van Roon made this portrait of a seated girl in a white dress, maybe sometime in the early 20th century. It's a photograph, a little window into the past. I wonder what it was like for him to capture this moment. Was the baby fussy? Did he have to work hard to get her to sit still? Think about how much time he might have spent in the darkroom to get the tones right. The soft greys and whites give the image a dreamy quality. It’s like he’s trying to capture the fleeting innocence of childhood. Look at the texture of the fur she’s sitting on. You can almost feel it. That contrast with the smooth, almost blurry face of the girl is so interesting. Artists like Van Roon help us see the world in new ways. They show us the beauty in the everyday. Every artist builds on the work of those who came before, and I build on them, too.