Gezicht op Weesen met op de achtergrond de Leistchamm en de Churfirsten before 1898

Curator: This photograph, housed here at the Rijksmuseum, is titled "Gezicht op Weesen met op de achtergrond de Leistchamm en de Churfirsten," placing us in Weesen, Switzerland. It's attributed to an anonymous photographer and dates from before 1898. Editor: What a perfectly still world. The lake mirrors the mountains in such a way, it almost feels like a premonition or reflection of some profound stillness to come. Curator: Well, consider the period. Late 19th-century photography often leaned into pictorialism, manipulating the photographic process to achieve painterly effects. We can certainly see it here. The softness, the gradation of tones...it isn't just a document of Weesen but a constructed aesthetic. The manipulation is apparent, it would have taken resources to create a romantic vision like this. Editor: Yes, constructed is a great way to put it. I’m especially drawn to the arrangement of light and shadow across the buildings; it brings out their relationship to nature itself. The dark rooftops against the bright, misty lake... there is a sort of dreaminess at play, suggesting a certain collective memory about villages nestled into grand mountains. Curator: We see that emphasis mirrored through its apparent themes: it celebrates industrial society but obscures any true insight. How exactly does that mist rise off the water and blend so elegantly with the smoke? How were these constructed? And what labour supported them? The technical labor involved here isn't invisible, it has left its mark. Editor: An astute observation. And within that mark of technique, you can see it; it carries the weight of collective longing for simpler times. Curator: In short, it reflects technological capability filtered by human aesthetic choices—very important, of course, and maybe, even necessary in these conditions, to even perceive a landscape. Editor: Well, whatever combination created it, I’m certain the anonymous artist behind it saw something beyond Weesen. A reflection on the town that holds a resonance for all places struggling to make sense of a world on the brink of great transformations.