Gezicht op een gebouw aan de Ganges before 1867

Curator: Let’s consider this gelatin-silver print, dated before 1867, titled "Gezicht op een gebouw aan de Ganges" or "View of a Building on the Ganges". It is by Thomas George Glover. Editor: The sepia tone gives it a feeling of antiquity. It’s an almost clinical depiction, quite flat, though the texture of the land around the building suggests a rugged terrain, particularly near the riverbank. Curator: Indeed, Glover, positioned here in India, participated in a broader Orientalist aesthetic that was fascinated by faraway lands. The Ganges itself carries immense spiritual weight in Hinduism. How might that impact our reading of this "chokrie" building on its banks? Editor: I am wondering if Glover knew or was interested in any of the potential symbolism. To my eye, the photographic process and materials used would have been costly, especially then. Consider how Glover, part of that social fabric, might be using it, or being used by it. Is it meant for circulation and what kind of consumption is happening with the images? Curator: Very relevant considerations. Perhaps this points to the psychological appeal the Ganges, and India more generally, held for the British Empire: as a source of power, a symbol of the exotic, even a form of personal or artistic enlightenment, filtered through his unique colonial lens. Editor: So the circulation becomes this… fetishization, a production of the image for a very specific audience who would be willing and able to consume the work for more than just what it shows in the image itself. Curator: Precisely. I find the print holds a silent echo of an era that constructed, celebrated, and exploited these cultural disparities. Editor: Ultimately, thinking about this image, I am reminded of how even documentary modes have always been interwoven with both intention and capital.