Portret uit archief Philip Zilcken after 1910

This photographic portrait of Dr. H. J. Vinkhuyzen, comes to us from the archive of Philip Zilcken, though the artist is anonymous. What gets me about this image is the way it’s built from shades of gray, like a charcoal drawing. It’s almost ghostly. The details are soft, not razor sharp, and it's really hard to determine much about the surface. It almost feels as though it’s been rubbed, worn away somehow, and this adds to its depth and interest. Look at how the light falls across his face, catching the planes of his forehead and cheekbones. The texture seems built up, like soft sediment. It makes me think of the early portraits by Gerhard Richter, where he's deliberately blurring and disrupting the photo-realist surface, and opening it up to a world of feeling. This is not about capturing a perfect likeness, but about exploring the fragile and transient nature of memory. Art isn’t about answers, it’s about the questions we ask.