Gedeelte van de Grote Kerk te Breda 1890 - 1920

This photograph of the Grote Kerk in Breda, made by an anonymous photographer for Monumentenzorg, has such a gentle, faded quality. It feels like a watercolor, all soft edges and muted tones. The image is like a whisper, just barely there. Look at the way the light seems to dissolve the architecture, blurring the line between the building and the sky. It’s as if the photographer was trying to capture not just the building, but the feeling of the building, the way it sits in the landscape. The textures here are also so interesting, the rough stone of the cathedral next to the smooth tiles of the house. It reminds me a bit of some of Gerhard Richter’s blurred paintings, where the image is almost lost in translation. Like Richter, this photographer seems to be interested in the way that images can both reveal and conceal, how they can be both present and absent at the same time. It's more about feeling than seeing.