Gezicht op het eiland Nisida in de golf van Napels, Italië 1857 - 1914

Curator: This is "Gezicht op het eiland Nisida in de golf van Napels, Italië," a captivating albumen print created sometime between 1857 and 1914, part of the Rijksmuseum's collection. What strikes you most when you first see it? Editor: Oh, that moody light! It's as if a memory, a hazy, antique vision is laid out before me. I'm getting a pensive feeling, like stepping back in time on a still, silent day. Curator: Absolutely, and the albumen process contributes so much to that feel. We can see in the tonal range, how the artist, Giorgio Sommer, uses chemistry to control depth, the way highlights pop against shadows that help make the land seem monumental. The sharp lines give way to muted tones as we move farther out to sea. It also showcases the expansion of photographic reproduction and dissemination. Editor: The road snaking up that cliff-face makes me wonder who was doing the building. Were they happy about it? How many lives were altered? How did their tools function, the means to produce such changes? One imagines the laborious work on-site and in studio processing these massive images in dangerous chemicals, not for 'art' exactly, but something that became that. Curator: Those are keen observations. Certainly, this landscape speaks of changing infrastructure of the nineteenth century as well as its visual culture. Consider also that Sommer operated a successful studio catering to tourists eager for views like this—images documenting their travels and experiences, reproduced by the score! What kind of materials are used for preservation? How does this photo come down to us in the digital space? What effect is made to see a vintage print in an era defined by digital imagery? Editor: Seeing it now, filtered through screens, there's an additional layer of temporal remove. I’m taken with the tension in the photo; there's so much nature and agriculture represented along with industry on that distant shore. One cannot visit without causing an effect. Curator: A delicate dance between nature and culture, perfectly captured through early photographic technology... A prescient comment, perhaps, for our own time! Editor: Precisely! So much in a single, layered, evocative photograph.