Bomen 1903

These two photographs, or photogravures by Erwin Raupp present rural scenes printed on the pages of a book. In both pictures the tonal range is very narrow, close-valued, with few highlights and darks. It feels as though a filter has been applied, or a lens used to capture the scene in a way that diminishes contrast. I like that in the image of the trees, on the right hand page, a branch reaches right across the composition, obscuring our view, and flattening the space. It reminds me of the way Fairfield Porter cropped figures in his paintings; an interruption of a scene which brings us closer to the surface of the image. In this sense the two prints have something in common; a tension between depth and flatness, which activates the surface, and makes you aware of the image as an object in itself. Like Porter, Raupp acknowledges the artifice inherent in our ways of seeing and picturing the world.