Soldaten in de ruïnes van het Alcázar 1936

This photograph, by Presse-Photo GMBH, captures soldiers in the ruins of the Alcázar. Look at the way the sepia tones wash over everything, turning stone, wood, and flesh into a uniform landscape. It’s as if the camera is sifting through the debris, trying to make sense of the chaos, but instead it’s making something else: a flattened, textured surface. I can feel the weight of history here, not just in the subject matter, but in the very process of image-making. See how the crumbled stones mimic the patterns in the soldiers' uniforms? It's a subtle mirroring. This makes me think of Robert Rauschenberg, who built pictures, not from paint, but from the real stuff of the world. It seems the photographer is not just recording, but building something new out of what’s been destroyed, and that perhaps that is the only way to continue.