Kamer met kinderhoek in landhuis De Wildbaan, Driebergen 1903 - 1907

Henry Pauw van Wieldrecht created this photograph of a child's corner in a country house. It’s a photograph, but it's also a study in domesticity. I mean, look at how the light falls. It's soft, filtered, and it lands on all these carefully arranged objects, casting shadows, and giving everything a certain weight. The process of making it is almost like painting, thinking about how to arrange things in space, and how they relate to each other formally, as shapes and forms. My eye is drawn to the cabinet with its glass doors, it's filled with all sorts of trinkets and toys, lined up neatly in rows. I wonder what it was like for a child to grow up in that room, surrounded by so many precious things. I like the way the artist makes a record of it all, inviting us to consider our own relationships to the objects and spaces that surround us, to consider what a privilege it is. This feels a bit like a Vuillard to me, all these carefully observed details of daily life, rendered with such tenderness and care.