Man achter een piano, vermoedelijk de Utrechtse pianist Wouter Hutschenruyter 1900 - 1905

This sepia-toned stereo card, shows a man at a piano, and was probably made to be viewed through a stereoscope. It’s interesting that this picture is a double, a doubled image, because it asks us how we see things, how we gain perspective and depth from two slightly different views. The way the light fades into the dark corners, that kind of tonal ambiguity, makes it feel almost like a memory or a dream. The photograph is full of texture. Look at the detail on the piano itself and the books on the shelves and the weave of the chair. All of these add to the overall feeling of richness. Although we can’t see the man's face, the position of his body suggests concentration and absorption in the act of making music. Think of someone like Gerhard Richter, who also used photographs as source material, blurring and manipulating them to create paintings that explore the relationship between representation and abstraction. I think both artists were trying to capture something about the nature of seeing itself.