Toren van de Dom van Frankfurt am Main 1881

Curator: I'm immediately struck by the verticality here, this striving upwards captured in such detail! Editor: Agreed. It's Sophus Williams' "Tower of the Frankfurt am Main Cathedral," created around 1881. A gelatin-silver print—mass-produced for the stereo viewers of the time. I’m interested in its function as a commodity intended for visual consumption. Curator: Right, but look at how this image participates in a broader narrative about power, particularly concerning the rise of nationalism in Germany. The cathedral becomes a symbol—a kind of visual shorthand—for the strength and ambition of the burgeoning German Empire. How does the selection of this religious site contribute to social cohesion in the German Empire at this time? Editor: True, the photographic process allowed for relatively cheap reproduction of national monuments as objects of leisure but let's also think about the production line and material conditions which enabled mass distribution, this is where photographic and material history intersect. The economic impact of these booming industries has its own, equally significant, story to tell. The role of industrialised print culture is essential to creating "art" as well as distributing it! Curator: A point well taken. But to bring it back to your focus on materiality – the monochromatic nature of the print itself invites interpretation. Absent of color, our attention is drawn to the play of light and shadow across the intricate Gothic facade, the very detail that Romanticism gloried in. That is a construction that reflects power dynamics that impact identities, gender and race in Germany and across the continent at that time. Editor: Interesting, you make the process sound almost subversive, and it does have an unintended flattening affect. However, for Williams and the consumer, its value was clearly aesthetic and memorial in intent and as a gelatin silver print, a commodity intended to satisfy consumer desires. Curator: Perhaps a desire for the spiritual elevated into the aesthetic realm! Thanks for providing this alternative interpretation. Editor: Likewise! Seeing art through different lenses makes it far more meaningful.