Portret van een vrouw 1891 - 1925

Jan Hendrik Schumaker made this portrait of a woman using photography at the turn of the century. The tones are soft, nearly monochromatic. The composition is traditional. I wonder what Schumaker was thinking as he framed this woman’s face. Was he interested in representing her just as she was, or was he trying to say something more? Maybe he was trying to capture the personality of the sitter. Her gaze is direct, but not confrontational. She seems calm. I like how her features have been rendered with such care; the lighting has been subtly controlled to create an almost painterly softness around her face. What would it be like to paint from this photograph? What would happen if I blew up the scale? I can imagine tracing these forms and then blotting and blurring them, smearing the edges. Every artist is working in conversation with others, remixing what came before. It is through this conversation that new ideas emerge. Painting is a process of continuous discovery, of never quite knowing what the outcome will be.