Interieur van de Hervormde Kerk te Monster na de brand 1901

This photograph, taken by an anonymous photographer, documents the interior of the Reformed Church at Monster after a fire. The sepia tones give it an antique feel, like a faded memory, and the composition leads your eye right up the skeletal remains of the church. Look how the light filters through what’s left of the roof, creating this ghostly, almost ethereal atmosphere. You can almost smell the smoke, can't you? The texture is all over the place, from the smooth, untouched parts of the tower to the rough edges of the damaged walls. It’s as if the fire has etched a new, brutal kind of mark-making onto the architecture. The fence in the foreground adds another layer, a modern attempt to cordon off the past. It's a scene of ruin, but also of resilience, not unlike Caspar David Friedrich's depictions of gothic ruins that explore the sublime, the meeting point between beauty and terror. It's a photograph about destruction, but it also captures the strange beauty that can emerge from it.