Portret van een man met snor en sik 1905

Curator: This rather striking image, titled "Portret van een man met snor en sik," or "Portrait of a man with moustache and goatee," was captured in 1905 by Johan Christiaan Reesinck. The piece is a gelatin silver print. What’s your initial take on it? Editor: Stately. Almost theatrical, that gentleman! It's the mustache, isn't it? Defiant yet elegant. Curator: Exactly! One could argue it's a carefully constructed performance of masculinity. Reesinck's work here, being a gelatin silver print, speaks volumes about accessibility to photography and art back then. It points to a move where artistic practices involved standardized chemical production, labor, and democratized image making. Editor: You can see it reflected, too, in the clothing and demeanor. A certain class is communicated effortlessly. The very materials, gelatin and silver, processed and arranged to solidify an idea about this person. The consumption of image is intrinsically embedded in the piece. How the labor makes the subject so tangible. Curator: It does pose questions. About access to material, but also about who gets to be memorialized, the power of photographic images to establish identity. The choice of using the silver gelatin printing method means there's also the need for darkroom work, printing equipment, glass plate negatives. Even the mounting displays careful consumer choices about the photographic display within the family context. I'm touched by that element of familial record-keeping. Do you suppose the man was self-aware of the persona he's constructing for the ages? Editor: Oh, absolutely! It’s impossible to escape that awareness. Just like these prints that would become so vital to mass communications over the course of the 20th Century, a little bit more human because of imperfections. This moment, though, it also gives a rare glimpse of humanity through historical perspective. Curator: Right. Well, delving into both the emotional qualities and the concrete processes of image creation, offers a far richer, interconnected experience.