Man en een vrouw sprokkelen hout before 1901

Louis Grombeer made this photograph of a man and woman collecting wood. I imagine him outside on a cold day, waiting for the right moment to capture these two figures working. You can see that Louis is interested in blurring the lines of representation, making something a bit more abstract from life. He's not afraid to let the details fade into shadow. There’s a dance between clarity and obscurity. The trees are like vertical strokes, similar to how some painters like to play with layering and repetition. What was he thinking about? I wonder about his influences, perhaps the Dutch Masters. Maybe the process of taking the picture was about seeing how much he could take away, how little he could show, but how much he could suggest about the human condition. The whole history of art is an ongoing conversation, isn't it?