Zeven landschappen, een zeelandschap en een gezicht op een straat in een dorp c. 1930

This page of small photographs, titled "Zeven landschappen, een zeelandschap en een gezicht op een straat in een dorp," is by Berti Hoppe, and presents nine views of landscapes in a documentary, matter-of-fact kind of way. The compositions are strikingly similar – each features a road or track receding into the distance, the perspective pulling you in. The light is even and soft, flattening the tones, while the grainy texture gives the photographs a tactile quality that belies their small size. This consistent structure almost makes the images seem like a serial work – a bit like a Hilla and Bernd Becher typology of roads! Take the bottom row, the middle picture, with its shadowy edge of forest – the darkness there seems to pull the light forward, to give the image a strange depth, an aura. It reminds me of some of the more austere photographs by Walker Evans. Like Evans, Hoppe gives us a specific time and place, but through a lens of ambiguity. The image becomes a vessel for our own experiences. Art, like the road, always leads somewhere.