Portret van een onbekende jonge man 1900 - 1914

This portrait of an unknown young man, probably made with a camera by Franz Xaver Adler, shows a figure posed against a mottled backdrop. Look at the way the gray tones give shape to the guy’s coat; it’s a study in process, the way shadows define the cut of the cloth. It’s the kind of portrait where the material aspects really speak. The paper has a weight, a grain, that makes the image feel almost tactile. The details are sharp, the textures of the suit and the soft blur of the background trees all contribute to the conceptual weight of the piece. Notice the light reflecting off the brim of the hat held in the figure’s left hand, and how it creates a perfect oval. This reminds me a little of Gerhard Richter’s photorealist paintings – that same sense of distance, of seeing something familiar through a filter of ambiguity. Art, after all, is about holding onto the questions, not just finding the answers.