hauntologist5000: “A boy of about six, dressed in a tight-fitting, almost deliberately humilia
hauntologist5000: “A boy of about six, dressed in a tight-fitting, almost deliberately humiliating child’s suit, overladen with lace, is seen standing in a kind of wintergarden landscape. The background teems with palm fronds. And as if to make these upholstered tropics still stickier and sultrier, the subject holds in his left hand an immoderately large hat with a broad brim of the type worn by Spaniards. He would surely disappear into the setting, were it not for his immeasurably sad eyes which dominate the landscape that has been predestined for them.This picture in its infinite sadness forms a pendant to the early photography where the people did not, as yet, look out at the world in so excluded and godforsaken a manner as this boy. They had an aura about them, a medium which mingled with their manner of looking and gave them a plenitude and security.”Walter Benjamin, “A Short History of Photography” emphasis mine) -- source link