Stam van de drakenbloedboom bij La Orotava 1856 - 1858

Curator: This gelatin silver print, “Stam van de drakenbloedboom bij La Orotava,” captures a remarkable tree. It dates from 1856-1858, created by Charles Piazzi Smyth. Editor: It looks like an alien landscape from a sci-fi flick! All those gnarly textures, the strange branching forms…gives me the creeps in the best possible way. Curator: Indeed, the high contrast amplifies the textures, highlighting the tree’s architectural structure, which verges into the abstract. Note how the formal components converge to build up the imposing subject using tonality, shade, form and light. Editor: And that light... It almost seems to be pushing from behind the tree. Is it supposed to give it some symbolic aura? The way it almost carves away some features, too…a sculptor in its own right, perhaps? Curator: It articulates a sense of time through erosion of the subject and adds significant depth within this otherwise two-dimensional piece, making the Dragonblood Tree into an allegorical figure against the landscape. Editor: Ah, allegory! I can almost hear that tree whispering old stories… like, "I have seen civilizations rise and crumble, human folly comes and goes but my roots remain..." corny maybe, but the picture just shouts antiquity to me! Curator: That may not be wrong, the medium—photography itself—then being so novel creates an interesting conversation with our own understanding of documentation and evidence, with its own sense of historicity further solidifying your reading. Editor: Maybe it just resonates that way due to its being photographed inside of an open book...like we have discovered some forgotten historical record and turned the page onto this awesome thing! Regardless, now I really want to climb it... carefully. Curator: An understandable impulse given how photograph invites introspection through time, memory, and even imagined journeys into unfamiliar landscapes, thank you. Editor: Yes, this thing has got such a strange aura—really sets it apart from typical botanical illustrations, no doubt.