Portretten van Duitse militairen, 1940 1940

These small black and white portraits of German soldiers were pasted into an album sometime in 1940. The unknown artist has captured the men in square frames, against a blurry backdrop of trees and bushes. The photo in the upper left is a man with no shirt on, looking straight at the camera. I imagine that he’s just finished some kind of physical exercise, and the artist took his photo just at that moment. The next photo is of a soldier with glasses, a ‘V’ stitched onto his shirt. I wonder what the V stands for? The artist might have been thinking about how to present these men, how to capture something essential about them. Each one has a different expression, a different stance. The physicality is striking. Painting, like photography, is all about looking, and an ongoing conversation that artists have with each other. This album reminds us how different ways of seeing can offer different ways of thinking, about ourselves, and the world.