Groepsportret van vier kinderen van de familie Vermeulen op een balkon c. 1901s

David Vermeulen's group portrait captures four children of the Vermeulen family on a balcony, using a sepia tone which dominates the composition, lending a sense of nostalgia. The photograph is structured around the horizontal lines of the wooden balcony floor, sharply contrasted by the vertical lines of the doorframe and the distant spire. The children are arranged in a pyramidal form, the boy seated at the base and the girls stacked above, creating a sense of stability within the frame. The sepia tone washes over the image, flattening the textures and reducing contrasts, which invites us to focus on the geometric interplay of forms and the spatial relationships between the figures and their environment. The composition's success lies in its subtle destabilization of formal portraiture, achieved through its informal setting and the children's natural poses. Vermeulen is not just capturing likenesses but also hinting at the lived experience, turning a family portrait into a study of form and light. This approach challenges our conventional understanding of photographic portraiture.