Twee kinderen spelend aan het Noordzeestrand 1907 - 1930

Adolphe Burdet made this small picture of two children playing on a beach, we think, sometime in the early 20th century, using a photographic process that gives it a muted, almost watercolour-like feel. What strikes me is the surface quality, it’s almost dreamlike. The way the light reflects off the wet sand, blurring the boundaries between the figures and their surroundings, it’s as though the scene is half-remembered. The children, dressed in red overalls, seem to be caught in a moment of pure, unselfconscious play. Look at the way the artist has captured their gestures, the sense of movement in the way the light catches on the water droplets, it’s like a fleeting memory made visible. There's something about the ordinariness of the scene that elevates it. It reminds me a little of some of the early colour work by Helen Levitt, a similar feeling of capturing a transient moment of everyday life. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t always have to be grand or monumental, sometimes it’s the small, intimate moments that resonate the most.