Portret van een vrouw met meisje 1860 - 1890

Curator: I'm struck by the solemnity of this vintage photograph. It's entitled "Portret van een vrouw met meisje," created sometime between 1860 and 1890 by Fr. Fischer. The photography almost has the appearance of a tonalist painting. Editor: Oh, yes. There's a strange tension there, isn't there? The softness suggests tenderness, but their expressions are rather stern, particularly the child's gaze! Almost confrontational. And she's been elevated somehow to emphasize the importance, despite the casual grip of her mother, which looks uncomfortable if not slightly intimidating, with her looming so high! Curator: The formal pose would certainly have been intended to convey status and respectability within the rising middle classes of the time, a sense of belonging. The composition reinforces traditional ideals, though maybe they do not know that as the child, her power comes from the one who raised her to the current position. There is power dynamic being played out, which seems both subtle and yet clear as crystal. Editor: Absolutely! It makes me think of Victorian notions of childhood, right? Children as miniature adults, supposed to be seen and not heard...that's so present here in how serious they appear. The tonal qualities adds such weight, doesn't it? Like a sepia-toned memory resurfacing. The starkness has drama! Curator: Genre painting in photography provided a means of conveying societal norms and expectations. The soft focus, even with the direct stares, serves to emphasize an aspirational idea of bourgeois womanhood and family. It serves as both documentation and symbolic presentation of societal hopes of order and unity, the photograph becomes something beyond pure reportage. It feels emotionally loaded to our eyes, now, almost staged or as if extracted from one another, even, but back then, the rigidity might have been perceived very differently. Editor: You are right. Time does things to art...It layers meanings upon meanings, the initial creation intention does not prevent it being something else entirely by the audience. The medium itself – photography – becomes a character, almost a relic of a specific mindset. Seeing it today, I'm really struck by the inherent paradox of preservation versus actual felt reality...It is now a strange performance more than the genuine act, a snapshot in memory. Curator: I think reflecting on it now, for me the photographic frame makes this ordinary photograph of a woman with a child into an object, in itself of art. Editor: Precisely, a meditation on memory. Thank you.