Untitled (young boy in suspenders standing with hand on back of chair, in front of window) after 1940

This is an untitled photograph by Paul Gittings currently held at the Harvard Art Museums. It presents a young boy standing beside a chair in front of a bright window. The composition is immediately striking due to its stark contrasts and the way light and shadow carve out form and space. Gittings seems to be playing with semiotics here, utilizing the domestic setting as a signifier of bourgeois life. The window, heavily filtered, serves as a visual metaphor for how perception is always mediated. The young boy, positioned between the light and the dark, becomes a focal point for exploring the duality of visibility and obscurity. The photograph destabilizes the traditional portrait by emphasizing the environment over the individual. The use of light to obscure and reveal is a conscious move to challenge fixed meanings. Notice how the formal qualities of the photograph—its focus on light, shadow, and the subtle interplay of forms—create a discourse about representation and interpretation. It reminds us that what we see is always a construct, shaped by both the artist and our own perceptions.