Contractarbeiders in een kolenmijn nabij Sawahlunto 1891 - 1912

This photograph by Christiaan Benjamin Nieuwenhuis captures contract laborers in a coal mine near Sawahlunto. It's a monochrome image, and the texture is immediately striking—that rock face looks rough, almost like thick impasto in a painting. I wonder what it was like for Nieuwenhuis to make this image. Was he sympathetic to the workers? I get the feeling that he was trying to capture something about their labor, and maybe also the conditions they were working in. I bet it was really hard to get the light just right to make that rock face look so dramatic and monumental. The way he framed the workers against the rock creates such a strong contrast. It's like they're part of the earth itself, yet separate from it. You know, images like this remind me how artists are always responding to each other, even across different media and time periods. Nieuwenhuis’ photo makes me think of Courbet’s stonebreakers. It is like a shared conversation about what labor looks like, and its human cost.