Leerlingen van Schule Schloss Salem tijdens een dramatische uitvoering c. 1929

This photograph, of students from Schule Schloss Salem during a dramatic performance, is an anonymous image of unknown date made with photographic materials of the time. The image is an interesting, if blurry, record of what seems to be a theatrical procession, perhaps a school play. The composition is largely determined by the constraints of the medium. There’s a very particular feel to these sorts of old photographs; the way the light falls, the way the figures are arranged, the tonal range and grain. It’s a world away from the super-crisp, infinitely reproducible digital image. You might say the photograph has a sort of aura, an authority, even if we don’t know the artist or the date it was made. There is something inherently melancholic, something about how this work, like a faded memory, captures a moment in time and preserves it for the future. It puts me in mind of the work of Jeff Wall, who uses photography to make large-scale, cinematic compositions that have the feel of history paintings. Both seem to reach beyond their medium to depict a frozen moment.