Schoorsteen van Steenschuur 7 of Maison Wijtenburg te Leiden 1904

Here's an old photograph of a chimney in the Maison Wijtenburg in Leiden, and it has a kind of faded grandeur. There's a painterly quality in how the light and shadow play across the surface, like a tonalist painting almost. Look at how the anonymous photographer captured the texture of the wallpaper and the intricate details of the chimney's design. The surface is smooth, but you can almost feel the age and history embedded in the image. The way the image fades into the edges suggests that time keeps moving, even when we try to capture a moment. It makes me think of Atget and his photos of Paris, capturing a sense of place and time through a specific way of seeing. But it also makes me think about how we are constantly reinterpreting the past through our own experiences. This image is so open to interpretation, and there’s no right way to see it, or any art for that matter.