Portret van Irene With, geleund tegen een boom 1920 - 1930

Curator: There’s an immediate quietude that washes over you, doesn’t it? A gentleness… almost a sepia-toned whisper from another time. Editor: Exactly! It feels like stepping into a memory, softened by the years. What is it? Curator: This is a gelatin silver print, dating from between 1920 and 1930, called "Portret van Irene With, geleund tegen een boom"—"Portrait of Irene With, leaning against a tree." It resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: "Leaning against a tree..." It's so unassuming, but powerful. The tree… she’s almost melded with it. There’s an echo of ancient earth mother figures here. Curator: I can see that. She's literally drawing strength and stability, and the tree acts almost like a column, classically grounding her, though her sailor's top feels incredibly modern against that earthy symbolism. It reminds me how our roots intertwine with our aspirations. She looks like she’s waiting, almost pensively. What is she waiting for, I wonder? Editor: The fence in the background divides spaces – civilization and wilderness – while she rests calmly within the frame. A symbolic androgyny, almost: caught between defined boundaries of nature and culture and freely exploring a territory betwixt and between. A child, almost a young man – an emblem of interwar fluidity? Curator: I never looked at it like that before! This reminds me how photography freezes a single moment of perception, how incomplete every symbol, really, becomes – and yet she still manages to speak across a century. I get the feeling of longing here, don’t you think? For the open horizon, beyond the treeline... Editor: Or perhaps she longs for the future. For whatever arrives, for dreams not yet solidified into being, suspended between sailor suit masculinity, womanly potential, earthboundness and beckoning freedom, the rooted and the boundless… she’s just lovely! Thank you. Curator: Yes, truly – and the beauty of its historical specificity makes it so powerful still today. Thanks!