Twee mannen bij een gletsjerspleet in de Eigergletsjer 1897 - 1920

Editor: Here we have an arresting landscape photograph titled "Two Men by a Crevasse on the Eiger Glacier," made sometime between 1897 and 1920. I see an anonymous photographer capturing a rather perilous scene. What do you make of it? Curator: Well, first, that crack, that yawning maw in the ice – doesn't it feel a bit like the earth is whispering secrets? Or maybe roaring warnings? It's a dance with mortality, really. Back then, photography itself felt like alchemy, didn't it? A way to freeze a moment, especially moments like these when man tested nature’s scale against their own. Makes you wonder what stories they took home, what shivers ran down their spines. Editor: I didn't even think of it as dangerous but I see what you mean. But the scale… it’s vast! It's incredible to consider what these men must have felt in the presence of all that raw power. Were landscape photos common at this time? Curator: Landscape photography had really started gaining traction, coinciding with folks romanticizing nature and their travels to find beauty. Don’t you see a hint of bravado here? Perhaps our picture takers were making this, for some, a way to bring daring adventure to a viewer’s living room! Did they appreciate this glacier for more than an exotic snap, though? Were they moved or merely titillated by the abyss? Those are my lingering thoughts... Editor: It definitely puts the landscape genre into perspective. Curator: Indeed. A blend of personal quest and perhaps reckless hubris, frozen for us to contemplate, long after they've stepped away from the edge. What's more real than that, I ask you?