Portret van een onbekende man 1908 - 1913

This is ‘Portrait of an Unknown Man’ by Peter Clausing, who made it sometime between 1890 and 1913. I can feel Clausing grappling with the play of light and shadow on this fella’s face. The artist is trying to trap him within the circle on the card, so it makes me wonder about the relationship between these two. You know, was Clausing trying to capture this man’s inner life, or just show off his own skill? I’m thinking about other portrait painters - Alice Neel, for example. She painted people that she knew, and in turn made them very well known to us. But this feels different. It’s a totally different era, a more contained feeling, it’s a riddle, and I want to find a way into it. Artists are always responding to the past, messing with its forms and styles to find new ways of seeing. It’s all one big conversation, and Clausing is part of it too.