Portret van Sarah Bernhardt 1867 - 1890

Curator: I find this drawing utterly captivating; it’s ethereal and haunting all at once. Editor: And to offer some context, what we’re looking at is titled "Portret van Sarah Bernhardt," attributed to Philip Zilcken and dating from around 1867 to 1890. It's currently held at the Rijksmuseum. It is done in pencil. Curator: The material and the labor involved tell such an interesting story. Zilcken's choice of pencil is telling; it allows for this incredible detail but it also has this democratic feel. It's accessible, relatable...almost defying the high art expectations of portraiture. Consider also the late 19th century—Bernhardt was a global superstar, commodified, and consumed by a burgeoning mass media. This pencil portrait—it speaks of the means of production behind this carefully manufactured persona. Editor: I appreciate that reading. My initial impulse goes more toward the formal aspects, its compositional dynamics. The figure's gaze and its location on the z-axis divides this composition into very apparent sections; the mass of hatched lines building up around her hairline seem to give way, creating these dramatic silhouettes...I think it would have been difficult to get these visual structures using any other media or process. Curator: Absolutely. Zilcken uses the inherent qualities of pencil—its reproducibility, its affordability—to engage with and possibly even subvert the grand, often aristocratic tradition of portraiture, making it available for the middle class. Bernhardt, herself, wasn't aristocratic... but through talent and ambition became someone whose image could be traded like currency, reproduced and circulated... Editor: The softness contributes so much, as well, because if one attempts to decode these structures into symbolic, more rigid associations between line weight and affect we may be missing a key point to these light airy drawings that Zilcken did... This one and its kindred portraits have a great and surprising airiness! The line has this ability to delineate features, define the expression and still feel like they will float right off the picture plane. Curator: Seeing this piece, you begin to consider her image in this particular format and medium. It begs us to investigate questions about celebrity, consumption, and artistic production in the 19th century in all the work that Zilcken accomplished during the fin-de-siecle! Editor: Agreed. It's these structural elements of a Zilcken pencil drawing like Sarah Bernhardt that give us more insight on not only what Zilcken found to be of most importance and aesthetic appeal but of that in Bernhardt as well.