Willem Witsen in de jury van de Rotterdamse Academie c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph, by J.H. Wolf, captures Willem Witsen with the jury of the Rotterdam Academy, though we don't know exactly when it was made. I am drawn to the muted tones. The whole scene feels caught between the gray of thought and the black of judgement. There's a lot of looking in this image. The jury, of course, gazing at a landscape painting presented to them, and us, now, looking at them. The room is lit in a way that creates a kind of shallow depth. It's like a stage set for the act of seeing itself. The surface of the photograph, with its soft gradations of tone, reminds me of the way Gerhard Richter sometimes blurs his paintings, making the image feel both present and distant. It's as if Wolf is suggesting that judgement, like art, is always mediated, always filtered through layers of perception and bias. It is nice to be reminded that everything we see is a matter of selection and framing.