Gedeelte van de Grote Kerk te Breda 1890 - 1920

This photograph, Gedeelte van de Grote Kerk te Breda, captures a section of the Great Church at Breda, likely with a camera and darkroom process that feels both technical and intuitive. The gray scale flattens the architecture into something almost abstract, like a geometric drawing. Look at how the light falls on the stone, creating patterns that are both structural and accidental. There is a bush at the bottom that has a great, clumpy shape that creates depth. The anonymous photographer is focused on pattern and the way the light and shadow create a sense of depth and texture. The softness of the image, the way the details almost dissolve into each other, makes me think of the way that Gerhard Richter used photography as the basis for his paintings. What I love most about this piece is that it shows how even in something as seemingly straightforward as architectural photography, there's always room for the artist's hand, their eye, to shape what we see and how we experience it.