Portret van een onbekende man 1906

Johan Henri Gustaaf Cohen Gosschalk created this print of an unknown man in 1906. The image offers a view into the social and cultural currents of the Netherlands at the turn of the century. Gosschalk, working at a time of significant social change, was a part of the movement interested in depicting everyday life and ordinary people. The man's weathered face and simple clothing suggest a working-class background, a subject increasingly visible in art as social hierarchies were questioned. The print medium itself, with its capacity for reproduction, democratized art, making it accessible to a wider audience, thereby critiquing the established institutions of art. To fully understand this work, we might delve into the archives of Dutch social history, exploring the socio-economic conditions that shaped the lives of ordinary people during this era. Art becomes meaningful through its entanglement with the social and institutional contexts in which it is created and consumed.