Portret van een vrouw 1861 - 1887

This is a photograph of a woman created by Albert Greiner. Note the symmetry in the arrangement of her clothing. The horizontal stripes create a rigid order that is only broken at her neck, where a floral brooch softens the image. Such ornaments echo the ‘pudor’ gesture, which we see across centuries, where figures cover their bodies to denote modesty. The brooch in this portrait perhaps serves a similar purpose, an indication of virtue. Consider Botticelli’s Venus, her hands drawn to cover her breasts and genitalia as she emerges from the sea. Over time, the gesture changes. Instead of the hand, fabric or jewelry conceals the body, yet the underlying message remains: an attempt to control the gaze, to temper the intensity of the viewer's look. This dynamic has a cyclical rhythm, continually reappearing and changing over time, in an effort to modulate our responses.