Boeket van bloemen before 1901

This photo of a 'Boeket van bloemen' appears in a book by Adolphe Louis Donnadieu, printed in black and white. Just imagine Donnadieu setting up the shot, carefully arranging the flowers, thinking about the composition, and how it would reproduce in print. It’s so interesting to see how different forms of reproduction – like photography and printmaking – have historically influenced painting, and vice versa. You can see artists like Manet and Degas experimenting with photographic compositions and cropping techniques. Photography offered a new way of seeing the world, capturing fleeting moments and unexpected perspectives that painters then began to explore in their own work. It’s all part of this incredible conversation that artists have with one another across time.