Ketelwagens in montagehal 1925 - 1926

This photo, by Atelier H. Gleysteen, shows a factory assembly line. The image's grayscale gives it a timeless, almost dreamlike quality. Look at the crisscrossing steel beams, and all those workers assembling what seem to be train carriages. The texture, or lack of it, is important here. The smooth greyscale flattens the image, creating a unified field of vision, but the density of detail gives it depth. This makes you feel like you’re standing inside the factory itself. The perspective leads your eye to the back of the factory, but the density of the composition means there’s no real end. The photograph evokes a sense of industry. You can see a relationship to the futurist paintings of Umberto Boccioni, where the image is used to communicate a sense of mechanical purpose. Art is always in conversation with its peers, as well as its elders, and this image is no different. It invites us to consider the world around us, and our relationship to it.