Gezicht op een zeilboot die vastgelopen is op de kust before 1902

This little photograph of a sailboat run aground on the coast appeared in a book. I can see the artist, Wyk Hoffman, capturing the scene in shades of grey, perhaps on a cloudy day, but somehow managing to give it light. The image is filled with horizontal lines—the line of the paper it’s printed on, the line of the sandbar, and a dark line that is the horizon. Did Hoffman think about the horizon line when they shot this? And what did he think when he saw the boat run aground, and what did he feel? Maybe the boat ran aground because the horizon was unclear. I can imagine the grainy texture of the sand, the salt spray in the air, and the boat sitting there, stopped dead in its tracks. It reminds me of the boats in Van Gogh’s paintings, and of course, of all the seascape painting ever made, by everyone. Art happens in an ongoing conversation.