Portret van Jannetje Visser 1894 - 1898

Curator: Here we have a photographic portrait titled "Portret van Jannetje Visser," taken sometime between 1894 and 1898 by the Gebroeders IJpma. Editor: What a beautifully ghostly image! It has such a dreamy quality. I feel as though I'm looking at a memory, faded but precious. It almost dances between a photograph and a sketch, right? Curator: Precisely! This work really exemplifies the style known as pictorialism. It emerged in that period to elevate photography to the realm of fine art through soft focus and evocative compositions. Editor: The way the light almost seems to emanate from within her… and her expression. It’s so direct yet somehow reserved. You get a sense of... knowingness. What do you make of that? Curator: In that era, portraiture was a very coded visual language. Her steady gaze, her simple but elegant attire… it conveys a sense of respectable middle-class identity. But beyond that, there is a certain universal strength suggested in that very gaze, I think. Perhaps it stems from her confidence or some awareness. Editor: Confidence, absolutely. But maybe even a subtle rebellion, you know? I find a quiet rebellion in a lot of female portraits from that time. A sort of "I am here, I am real," statement quietly being made. Curator: That reading sits quite comfortably with what we know about photography as it was evolving into a new language and portraiture becoming far more widespread at the time. This form became something everyone could participate in. A way to project an identity, certainly. But you are correct, perhaps also a hidden desire to become someone new, maybe. Editor: Beautifully put. And that's what keeps drawing me in. It's both very specific to its time and universal at once. I feel I could see myself, and people I have known in her. Curator: And that speaks to photography’s capacity to connect us to the past and our shared experiences. Well, that’s all for this stop. We do hope you'll carry away a piece of Jannetje Visser and her story today.