Portret van een staande man bij tafel met een boek 1855 - 1865

Editor: Here we have Fourie’s albumen print from between 1855 and 1865, “Portret van een staande man bij tafel met een boek,” or "Portrait of a standing man at a table with a book." He looks quite dapper, if a little self-serious. I wonder, what draws your eye when you look at this portrait? Curator: What grabs me is the staging. It's trying so hard to be effortlessly intellectual. The table with the books... is it supposed to say, "Oh, just caught me mid-thought?" I wonder what sort of character Fourie was trying to conjure. Editor: So, less about the man himself, more about the image he wants to project? Curator: Exactly. Look at the hand casually tucked in his coat. Then look at his eyes, his gaze that meets yours unflinchingly. Perhaps the truth lies in that contrast – the constructed pose and the very real presence of his look. Doesn’t that remind you of the pretense we construct ourselves with? A careful curation for our lives. Editor: It’s like an early form of a LinkedIn profile picture, attempting a balance between competence and approachability! I wonder what stories the books on that table could tell about the subject? Curator: Perhaps they're props, after all. Or perhaps those are journals. What did that time mean? It was pre-cinema, pre-TV, so in many senses, the printed world *was* the virtual world. Perhaps Fourie is making him present himself inside a reality for the viewer, where stories are told? Editor: Hmmm, it puts a new spin on it. Maybe it's not a portrait of a man, but an invitation into his imagined world. I appreciate noticing this wasn’t a passive image at all. Curator: Indeed! Art never really is, is it?