Portret van Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1917

This is a photograph of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, although no one knows who took it, or when exactly. Imagine being a painter like Renoir, always searching for the right angle, the perfect light. I wonder what he’s thinking in this moment? He looks tired but dignified, seated in a somewhat ornate chair, wearing ordinary clothes. It's kind of endearing, this mix of the everyday with the extraordinary. The monochrome palette and the way the image captures the texture of his beard, and the worn fabric of his clothes, give this portrait a sense of intimacy. The image is small, like a glimpse into a private world. It reminds me that artists, even the famous ones, are just people trying to make sense of the world through their work. It's like a conversation across time, where we’re all adding our own strokes to the same canvas.