David Sprengel, 1880-1941, skribent, kritiker 1918

Curator: Looking at "David Sprengel, 1880-1941, skribent, kritiker," a 1918 oil painting by Nils Dardel, what captures your attention first? Editor: The unsettling quiet. It's that intense black backdrop against the man in the vibrant blue suit. Makes me think he’s trapped in some melancholic dream, a stylish phantom haunting the canvas. Curator: Yes, Dardel’s masterful use of colour generates striking oppositions. Note how the composition relies on a stark contrast: the figure rendered in vibrant blues, reds and off-whites emerges sharply against a uniformly dark ground. Editor: Absolutely. The suit, that striking cobalt, seems almost too loud against the somber void. It’s theatrical. Then you've got his hands, strangely elongated, delicate holding what seems to be a tiny cigarette…a flimsy barrier against all that black. It is like he’s trying to maintain an exquisite, doomed elegance. Curator: Such visual choices accentuate what could be viewed as Sprengel's affectedness. Consider, also, the geometric stylization characteristic of Dardel’s early modernist portraits. See the streamlining of the nose, the almost flat rendering of the face against the detailed layering that defines his suit. This both isolates the figure and abstracts him into pure visual form. Editor: There’s this strange push and pull between representation and caricature too. I mean the slightly too-red lips, and the slicked back hair...it’s a performance of sophistication teetering on something fragile, something melancholic. Maybe even a bit desperate. Do you think Dardel liked Sprengel? Curator: Dardel was quite aware of the aesthetic and social currents of his time. The formal choices point to the construction of an image – of status, certainly – but perhaps also, of fragility in the face of the overwhelming anonymity of modernity. Editor: And that’s why this work keeps drawing me back. It’s beautiful but…also haunting. Like catching a glimpse into someone's private, slightly desperate, performance of self. Curator: Indeed, Dardel's strategic formal juxtapositions capture that peculiar tension beautifully. A tension whose visual echo still reverberates.