Reliëf van de Borobudur (Boroboedoer), nabij Magelang, Nederlands-Indië c. 1895 - 1915

This is a photograph of a relief from Borobudur, taken by Onnes Kurkdjian sometime in the late 19th century. What strikes me first is the sheer amount of detail. Look at the leaves in the trees. Each one appears to be individually carved, creating this incredibly intricate pattern across the surface. The relief itself is stone, of course. You can almost feel the texture, the way the light catches on the rough surface and creates these deep shadows. There’s something really lovely about the way the figures are arranged. See how they’re all seated, kind of nestled together. It reminds me of the way figures are placed in Giotto's paintings - all squashed together and slightly out of scale. Photography gives us a kind of copy, but think about the labour of the relief itself; all that time spent carving and cutting. Art is always a conversation across time and space.