Portret van een jongen 1870 - 1877

This small portrait of a boy was made by Willem Frederik Vinkenbos sometime in the late nineteenth century. It's a photograph, and the process by which it was made had a profound impact on its appearance. Photography was still a relatively new medium at the time, and it was often seen as a way to capture reality in a more objective way than painting. But the early photographic processes were also quite complex and time-consuming. This image would have involved coating a glass plate with a light-sensitive emulsion, exposing it in a large format camera, and then developing the image in a darkroom. The resulting image has a soft, ethereal quality. It’s sepia-toned, lending it an antique feel. It’s quite a contrast from the high-definition digital images we are so accustomed to today, and that difference is a reminder that all images are shaped by the technologies that produce them. This photograph makes us reflect on how the making shapes meaning, and invites us to look beyond conventional hierarchies between art and craft.