Neerlaten van een sloep c. 1930s

Here’s a small photograph, just 7.6 by 10.5 cm, called ‘Neerlaten van een sloep’ – ‘Lowering a Boat’ – by an unknown artist, with no date given. I love these old photographs, they remind me of a Gerhard Richter painting – so blurred and monochromatic that the world almost slips into abstraction. It’s hard to tell exactly what's going on; figures cluster on a deck around a small boat, perhaps getting ready to launch it. I wonder what it must have been like to take this photograph, to hold the camera and capture this scene? Maybe the artist was trying to capture a moment of transition, of departure, of change? I like the way the artist is unknown. It adds a layer of mystery to the image, it makes me think about all the artists whose names have been lost to history, but who still managed to create something beautiful and meaningful. Art is about connecting to each other, across time and space, and the image captures that beautifully.