Vliegtuig op een luchthaven c. 1930 - 1940

This photograph of an airplane at an airport was made by an anonymous photographer. It’s a study in grayscale, a landscape of industrial forms against a painterly sky. I imagine the photographer, whoever they were, searching for that perfect angle, waiting for the light to hit just right. What were they thinking as they framed this shot? Did they know it would end up here, in the Rijksmuseum? There’s something about the texture of the clouds, a kind of smeared softness, contrasted with the sharp edges of the plane that gets me thinking. It feels almost abstract. It reminds me of some of Gerhard Richter’s blurred photographs that he uses as source material for paintings. There is a kinship between photography and painting. It's an ongoing conversation across time, inspiring creativity. This photograph gives a feeling of stillness and anticipation, of a journey about to begin, or just ended. It invites us to contemplate the uncertain, the ambiguous, and the multiple stories that can be embedded in a single image.