Portret van drie mensen op een rots aan een Noors meer 1909

Editor: This is a photograph from 1909 by Geldolph Adriaan Kessler, called "Portret van drie mensen op een rots aan een Noors meer" - "Portrait of Three People on a Rock by a Norwegian Lake". The sepia tone gives it a kind of melancholic beauty, and the composition is really striking. How do you read this work? Curator: It's a captivating image, isn’t it? Given the pictorialist style and the date, 1909, I'm particularly drawn to how the photograph stages ideas about identity and landscape. Consider the individuals silhouetted against this vast, 'untouched' Norwegian landscape. Who are they, and what does their presence signify? Editor: They seem dwarfed by the landscape, almost like they’re trying to assert some kind of dominion over it. Curator: Precisely. And think about what 'dominion' might have meant at the dawn of the 20th century, a period rife with colonial ambitions and burgeoning nationalisms. Are these figures explorers, tourists, colonizers? Does the photograph celebrate or critique that relationship? It would be fruitful to examine the photographer’s social context and personal background. Editor: That's really interesting. I hadn’t considered it in terms of power dynamics. So, beyond the immediate beauty of the landscape, you're seeing a more complicated narrative about the relationship between humanity and nature, and potentially about cultural identity. Curator: Absolutely. Photography at this time was also undergoing its own identity crisis. The photographer seems to be trying to make photography ‘art’ by imitating painting techniques. Consider, too, the potential for queer readings here - does this composition suggest gendered positions of power or even familial, possibly romantic, relations? These subtleties embedded in a seemingly simple photograph highlight a larger cultural debate about the status of humanity and the landscape itself. Editor: I've definitely got a lot to think about. Thanks for bringing that context into view, I can never unsee it now! Curator: That is how we grow as artists and people, together.