Rol met lichtblauw lint met één gerafelde zijde en drie blauwe horizontale strepen c. 1935

Curator: What strikes me immediately about this image is the sheer stillness, the quietude it emanates. It’s almost meditative. Editor: Indeed. We are looking at a still-life photograph taken around 1935 by Gustav Schnitzler. The work, titled "Rol met lichtblauw lint met één gerafelde zijde en drie blauwe horizontale strepen," resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Curator: It’s just a simple roll of light blue ribbon, though. What stories could be woven from something so commonplace? Who was using such ribbons at that time? What sort of events needed trimming in such manner? Editor: Precisely! Consider the modern era, when standardized factory production permeated society, bringing machine-made, consumerist products into everyone's lives. The photograph's sharp focus brings out both material qualities of the object but simultaneously highlights their inevitable obsolescence too, the eventual ruin of everything under commodity capitalism. Curator: Do you think this interest in textiles can be gendered at all? Considering that such adornments historically were produced and utilized predominantly by women in the domestic sphere? It calls into question labour within the private, social construct of home, for example. Editor: The composition here isn't an accident. It echoes older traditions within still-life paintings, the very tradition that made Dutch society an art historical leader from the 16th Century! However, here we witness everyday materiality highlighted as beautiful due to the context and light. Curator: You've brought up such compelling insights, particularly situating such ordinary materials and textures within the broader history of Dutch material culture and social structure of the mid-20th century! I also am very appreciative to consider photography as the lens (literally and figuratively) which can challenge and solidify traditional conventions. Editor: Indeed. Photography like this helps us rethink artistic categories. An ostensibly banal photograph actually can speak volumes!