Leprozenkolonie Danaradja: personeel poserend achter een bord Possibly 1922

This photograph of the Leprozenkolonie Danaradja, showing staff posing behind a sign, was made by an anonymous artist. I’m struck by the way the sepia tone flattens the image, pushing it towards abstraction. It’s like a memory fading, the details softening, and what remains is a study in form and tone. Look closely at the figures. Their postures, their arrangement. Each person is a small tonal element, a mark, contributing to the overall composition. The light reflecting off their clothes, creating subtle gradations, reminds me of the way I layer paint in my own work, building up surfaces through repetition and variation. The sign they hold, etched with words, adds another layer of texture to the image. It’s a record, but also a barrier, a reminder of the social distance inherent in the scene. It is evocative of the work of Félix Vallotton, with its muted palettes and subtle sense of distance and ambiguity, which captures a specific atmosphere and invites us to reflect on the complex relationship between representation and reality. Ultimately, this is an image of exchange, of human connection mediated by a complex social reality.