Portret van violist Jascha Heifetz 1900 - 1938

This photograph of Jascha Heifetz, the legendary violinist, lives here in the Rijksmuseum, and was made by an unknown artist. The grey-scale of the image casts a subdued light on everything, with the only intense blacks reserved for the background. If you look closely, you can see the artist has used the depth of field of the lens to soften out the background, leaving all the detail for Heifetz’s face and hands. Heifetz himself is suspended in the moment of making music. There’s a tension to the image; he isn’t playing, exactly, but he isn’t at rest, either. His eyes are cast to the side as if imagining the sound. Look at the way his fingers gently cradle the violin's neck; you can tell how familiar he is with the instrument. The whole photograph is a testament to a moment of creative thought and physical action, which is something I’m always chasing in my own work. This picture reminds me of Berenice Abbott’s portraits of artists and writers. Like Abott, this photographer really captures the essence of his subject, as a study in the making of an artist.