Portret van een onbekende man met snor 1887 - 1920

This portrait of an unknown man with a mustache was made by Henri Berssenbrugge. Looking at this, I can imagine Berssenbrugge really thinking about light. It's so subtle in the way it defines the man's face, catching the high points and leaving the rest in shadow. It makes me think about how we see each other, the stories we tell ourselves based on just a few details. The details are what you look for in someone’s face, the shape of the brow, the corner of the mouth, the set of the eyes. There's something about the soft focus that feels so intimate, as though we're sharing a secret with this man. It reminds me a little of those old family photos you find in an attic, where the people seem both familiar and impossibly distant. Photography, like painting, can have such intimacy, where you feel the subject is reaching out across time to share their stories. We see the person and feel ourselves.