Diverse onderwerpen 1939

This is an album page, 'Diverse onderwerpen', by an anonymous artist. It’s a collection of photographs pasted into a scrapbook, a memory-keeping exercise. The muted tones, the way the images are arranged—it all speaks to a process of sorting and arranging, much like how I approach a canvas. It’s interesting how the black and white photographs depict such different subjects. The landscape reminds me of a winding river, a path taken, or a road not taken. The image of the officer at his desk is striking. The eye is drawn to the detail around his face, the piles of papers, and the mundane setting of the office. The physicality of the album, the act of pasting and preserving, adds another layer. Each image a brushstroke in a larger composition. The horses, powerful and gentle, like the paintings of Franz Marc, who explored animal subjects with a spiritual intensity. Like Marc's work, these images invite us to reflect on our relationship to the natural world and the human experience. Albums, like paintings, can be interpreted in many ways, open to the viewer's own reflections.