Interieur van een kamer c. 1865 - 1900

This is Laurens Lodewijk Kleijn's "Interieur van een kamer." Kleijn was working in the mid-19th century, a period of great social change and technological advancement. Although we don't know the exact date of this piece, the photographic process would have been relatively new. Kleijn captures a domestic interior, but rather than the typical opulent display of wealth we often see in paintings of bourgeois interiors, there is a starkness to the image. The light is flat and there are very few details in the shadows. It creates a strange mood, as if it is haunted. The photographic image creates a distance between the viewer and the subject, which emphasizes the artificiality of the domestic space. What does it mean for a new technology like photography to capture the interior lives of people? What is revealed and what is obscured? The image has a ghostliness that speaks to the complicated nature of representation.