Portret van een jonge vrouw c. 1923

Arthur Eckerlein captured this 'Portret van een jonge vrouw' with a camera, in a time when photography was as much alchemy as it was art. Looking at this, I imagine Eckerlein in the darkroom, coaxing the image out of the chemicals, a slow reveal like watching a memory materialize. There’s a formality to the pose, but the soft focus gives it an intimate feel, as if we’re peeking into a private moment. The young woman’s expression is so interesting; there's a directness in her gaze that feels modern, yet she's framed by the constraints of her time. You see echoes of painters like John Singer Sargent, who also captured the nuances of personality within the rigid structures of portraiture. It’s like artists, no matter the medium, are always in conversation, riffing off each other’s ideas across decades, trying to pin down what it means to be seen, to be known, to be remembered.