Portret van een vrouw 1900 - 1910

Willy Dose made this photo, ‘Portret van een vrouw,’ with great attention to the subtleties of monochrome tones. The image is small, like a whisper from the past, and the colour is reduced to sepia. What gets amplified instead is the texture, the crinkled hair around her face, the lacy ornamentation of her dress. See how the light catches on her cheek and forehead? The frame almost bleeds into the background, so the woman in the oval feels as if she’s floating, somehow. I’m thinking of how similar it is to some of Alice Neel’s paintings – a sense of unvarnished, slightly awkward humanity that just grabs your attention. You can almost feel the weight of history, of countless untold stories, etched into every detail. Art's like a big conversation, right? Dose, Neel – they're all chatting across time, inviting us to listen in.