Amsterdam IV c. 1900 - 1910

Henricus Jacobus Tollens made this gelatin silver print, ‘Amsterdam IV’, at an unknown date. Looking at this image, I can imagine what it might have been like for Tollens to compose it. He must have been fascinated by the texture of the riverbed, and the contrast between water and land, as the boat sits beached on the shore. There is a formal elegance here, a stillness to the scene. I’m wondering what Tollens was thinking about when he made this print. Was he interested in the formal qualities of photography itself, the silver gelatin, the light and shadow, the way a scene can be fixed and preserved in time? It makes me think of other artists who were drawn to the industrial landscape, like Charles Sheeler, for example. Artists are always in conversation with each other, building on what came before, pushing the boundaries of their chosen medium. And that’s what I love about art, the way it keeps evolving and changing.