Portret van een onbekende vrouw 1905 - 1928

This small photograph captures an unknown woman by Jacobus Marinus van der Peijl. It makes me think about the material qualities of the photographic print itself – the tonal shifts and grainy textures that are unique to this medium. I imagine the artist in the darkroom, carefully calibrating the exposure to capture the woman’s likeness, thinking about how different forms of image making offer different ways of seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world. What was she thinking, this woman we don’t know, as she sat there in the studio? There’s a lot of history, a lot of feeling in such a small print. Artists are in an ongoing conversation across time, inspiring one another’s creativity, and this image, like so many others, invites us to reflect on the stories and histories embedded in the art. It’s a conversation with the past, where ambiguity and uncertainty allow for endless interpretations.