Werk aan de weg met versteningen 1903 - 1913

This anonymous photo, Werk aan de weg met versteningen, shows a road being built, and something about the 'versteningen' – maybe milestones, or markers, made of packed earth. I get a sense of the anonymous artist trudging, waiting, watching. I wonder what it was like to be there, seeing this new road cut through the landscape? How did they feel about this change? Did they feel proud? The perspective pulls you in, between the dirt banks, towards the trees, towards the light and the figures in the distance. It is a simple composition, yet strangely compelling. Like looking at a work by Bernd and Hilla Becher, the German photographers, who documented industrial structures, I find myself drawn to the repetition. The markers. The trees. The anonymous figures. It’s like the photographer is trying to make sense of something by framing it. By giving it order. That's what us artists do. It is the eternal conversation artists have with the world, and with each other, through making.