Blauwe Grot op het eiland Capri, Italië 1857 - 1914

Curator: What an enigmatic image. This gelatin silver print, titled "Blauwe Grot op het eiland Capri, Italië", which translates to "Blue Grotto on the Island of Capri, Italy", captures a sense of otherworldly beauty, dating to between 1857 and 1914, and is attributed to Giorgio Sommer. Editor: It's utterly mesmerizing. That spectral light cascading down… it's less a picture and more a feeling, like staring into a dream, or the ocean's heart. There is some kind of surreal beauty in the interplay of the rocky dark cave and the soft glowing water! Curator: Exactly! And think about the context. Travel photography in the 19th century wasn't just about documentation, but shaping the viewers experience of exotic locations, constructing a sort of cultural tourism for audiences unable to visit themselves. The Blue Grotto became an almost mythological destination through imagery like this. Editor: Mythological indeed. The way that the light hits the water… it almost erases any sense of time. We are transported into the very heart of myth, where the water spirits gather and play! I'd wager, that light is precisely the element, that the photograph is about: a very deliberate artistic choice to turn our experience of the world upside down! Curator: Precisely, these locations weren't just physical spaces; they were potent symbols invested with layers of cultural meaning and the romantic vision of landscape painting. Giorgio Sommer, consciously or not, played right into that visual culture by using the gelatin silver process to show this famous Italian landscape. It shows how far and wide such symbolism went at the time. Editor: And now it's up to us, as viewers, to decipher the message that's lingering. If I give the photograph another glimpse, that uncanny play of light whispers even louder... What would you make of it, with one sentence? Curator: I’d suggest the image uses photography as a way to cement a particular version of cultural tourism. It helped shape the Grotto into an otherworldly monument.