Oude eik op het landgoed Nieuw Raude te Diepenveen c. 1900 - 1940

This is a photograph of an old oak tree on the Nieuw Raude estate in Diepenveen, taken by Richard Tepe. The dreamy sepia tones and soft focus are like a whisper of a memory. It reminds me of that feeling when you try to recall a dream. It is all about texture: the bark of the tree, the leaves on the ground, the reflection on the water. The surface of the print isn’t perfectly smooth, and that contributes to the feeling that the image has depth, like you could reach into it. Look at the way the light filters through the leaves. Each branch has its own character; you get a sense of the weight of each bough. Tepe’s photograph reminds me of some of Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes, especially in its evocation of nature as something both beautiful and melancholic. Like artmaking, a tree grows through a constant process of layering and change.