Laantje naar het woonhuis van Plantage Accaribo, met de rivierboot Prins Hendrik op de achtergrond. 1913 - 1930

This lantern slide of a plantation scene with riverboat was made by Theodoor Brouwers sometime between 1875 and 1932. It's a tiny little window, this image, barely a few inches across, but it opens up a whole world. The monochrome tones give it a kind of ghostly feel, like a memory half-forgotten. The details are soft, almost blurry, and the light is flat, which makes it seem less about capturing a specific moment and more about evoking a general feeling. I keep coming back to the strange horizon line, or the line where we think the horizon should be. A palm tree sits to the left, and the river boat sits behind it. The boat is blurry, perhaps it is moving along the river. It reminds me a little of some of Gerhard Richter’s blurry photographs. Both artists are interested in how we see and remember, and how those things can be unreliable. Art is a conversation, after all, and these are just a couple of voices in the mix.