Velddag van de Jeugdstorm 1934 - 1943

A.Ph. de Keijzer created this small photograph of a Youth Storm rally. The figures standing in formation with their flags and uniforms make me think of a very formal painting - a frieze, maybe. The artist is working with light to shape the figures, to flatten them, almost like a bas-relief. There are so many faces, yet we can't see them, they are just a mass. I wonder what the photographer was feeling as they captured this image. I find myself looking at the flags – they are like paintings within the painting. Each carrying a potent symbol, they are a focal point, drawing us into the image's complex narrative. The artist has presented a moment, an instant, captured and preserved, but the resonance of that instant lingers far beyond the edges of the photograph, inviting us to ponder the weight of history.