Landschappen te Rotterdam en de hond Bessie 1939

Editor: We're looking at "Landschappen te Rotterdam en de hond Bessie," made in 1939 by Herman Besselaar. It is a gelatin-silver print presented in a scrapbook. The presentation as a collection strikes me, like a visual diary capturing mundane landscapes and some rather charming animals. How might we unpack Besselaar’s compositional choices here? Curator: Indeed. Note the repeated geometric structure—the photographs are arranged within the album page in a rigid grid. Consider the formal properties of the gelatin-silver print: the stark contrasts, the limited tonal range. These choices create a certain austerity, a formal distance from the subject matter. Is this distancing a deliberate strategy, perhaps a way to observe the world with a cool detachment? Editor: That’s an interesting idea. I see how the repetitive format and limited tonal range create that sense of detachment, even with something as inherently charming as the dog, Bessie, or even the pastoral scene with the deer. How much do you think that repeated form impacts our understanding of the artist? Curator: The repetition, to me, establishes a system, a method of seeing and recording. Each photograph becomes a unit within a larger whole. It asks us to look beyond the individual image and consider the relationships between them. How do the landscapes inform the portraits of the animals, and vice versa? Editor: I hadn't considered that relationship before! Looking again, the geometric order almost feels like a controlled environment, imposing order on potentially sentimental subjects. This has given me a new appreciation for what might seem like simple snapshots at first glance. Curator: Precisely! It's in that tension between the intimate subject matter and the formal constraints that the work achieves its power. There's always a push and pull of geometric vs natural form here. Editor: Thank you. I’ll never look at someone’s snapshots in quite the same way.