In het oerbosch 1903 - 1910

Curator: Look at this remarkable photograph by Hendrik Doijer, created sometime between 1903 and 1910, titled "In het oerbosch", which translates to "In the Primeval Forest." Editor: Primeval is right! It's utterly consuming, this dense layering. I feel a little swallowed by it, like I'm sinking into the humid undergrowth. Dark greens bleeding into shades of grey – so very evocative. Curator: Absolutely, and Doijer achieved that atmosphere using a photography style that borrows from painting: pictorialism. Notice how the focus isn't crystal clear, lending it a soft, almost dreamy quality. He manipulates the image to create a mood rather than a document. Editor: So it’s less about sharp-edged realism, and more about conveying a sense of being in this space, that sense of verdant enclosure. I wonder, did Doijer intend to evoke feelings about colonialism or exploration, or is that just my 21st-century baggage? Curator: Well, these types of images became popular around the turn of the century, and, for example, functioned as visual documentation during a period of immense interest in cataloging and studying the natural world. There was often that implication of exoticism, as well. Editor: But at the same time, there is this profound feeling of otherness, like something just beyond perception. Perhaps, like other photographs from that era, they reflect how people viewed "nature" itself: something mysterious to be subdued? I look and keep wanting more depth in the field to clarify its planes but I find beauty in the inability to easily access all it has to offer at once. Curator: Perhaps it is an exercise of viewing a "real" moment from history with more empathy for what has been, since it’s only in black and white; yet even absent colour, this place breathes, doesn’t it? Editor: Indeed. You can almost hear the buzzing of unseen insects. Thanks, Hendrik Doijer, for transporting me to somewhere deeply, darkly green.