Husmand 

Curator: This is a fascinating gelatin-silver print by Theodor Severin Kittelsen titled "Husmand". What strikes you immediately about it? Editor: The overall mood. It feels stark, isolating almost, a lone figure barely visible under this dominating moonlight, lost in the immensity of the woods. There’s something almost suffocating about all this gelatin silver... what's its purpose? Curator: Well, gelatin-silver prints were widely accessible. It suggests a certain democratic impulse. Making the mysterious available to all through the print-making process! But back to that mood... It's a landscape with a palpable sense of symbolism; do you notice the texture of that path the Husmand treads? Editor: I do now! So we can really see how labor and nature are intertwined! You know, the processing of gelatin silver, itself, can be seen as an early form of industrial reproduction. All this to ask about its social ramifications: how widely distributed were his works at the time, and what classes or kinds of people bought or consumed such material culture? Curator: I'd say the circulation gave visual expression to a widely held longing and melancholy tied to rural life in transition. The lonely figure and overwhelming nature are definitely intentional. The light is so striking, though, illuminating that solitary person while everything is almost menacingly dark around them, there is a spiritual side of the land in dialogue, even conflict, with human progress. Editor: The material limitations of the process add a raw texture. Those deep blacks highlight the contrast, and, as a consequence, heighten this experience for the public viewing. But if gelatin silver was easily made, then did Theodor actually touch them, the materials he worked with? In this piece, it seems he is making something new, as well, from what used to be at the tip of one's fingers to creating a piece using the processes and culture available! Curator: I love the question because I am very keen about what it does: to probe into the soul of what's lost but lingers on, right. Ultimately, both figure and landscape bear a shared witness! Editor: So true! Now, I walk away with an urgent need to look further into what material, culture, and labor go into "Husmand"!