Kameleon c. 1900 - 1910

Henricus Jacobus Tollens’ photograph of the Kameleon, taken sometime in the early 20th century, is all about the process of capturing a fleeting moment. The tones are soft and muted, as if the image is slowly fading, which gives it a dreamy, ephemeral quality. What strikes me is the surface – smooth and almost textureless, yet hinting at the gritty reality of industrial machinery. You can almost feel the dampness of the water and the weight of the metal. There's this incredible stillness, but you know that beneath the surface, the machine is churning away. The angle, slightly off-center, makes the whole thing feel a bit precarious, a bit like life itself. It’s like looking at a Whistler nocturne, but instead of a misty London street, you’re confronted with the brute force of a dredging vessel. Both capture a sense of atmosphere and mood, and remind us that art is an ongoing conversation across time. Art embraces ambiguity.