Strand met veel publiek c. 1901

Curator: Welcome. We're looking at Frits Freerks Fontein's gelatin silver print, "Strand met veel publiek", or "Beach with many people", circa 1901. Editor: It has a somewhat muted, overcast feel to it. The composition appears very balanced, almost classical, despite the apparent activity on the beach. Curator: The tonal range, especially in the sky, demonstrates considerable control. Note the composition is very much of its time with the rule of thirds creating emphasis in the distance. Also the high horizon suggests this may have been shot with an early wide angle lens or adapted plate camera Editor: It strikes me how stratified society was here; some ride donkeys for leisure, while others are relegated to laboring on the beach. What does it mean that leisure, particularly at the beach, remains such a visually and economically segregated space? The photograph inadvertently makes an astute comment about labor and privilege. Curator: That’s certainly a reading, but the photograph itself— its internal relationships—are ordered along more strictly pictorial lines. See how the verticality of the buildings at the beach front balance the horizontality of the ocean, the wet sand catching reflections which echo those forms. Editor: But to ignore the social commentary inherent in the captured image seems willfully ignorant, don't you think? To look at the silver gelatin and not to register a rapidly modernizing culture at its apex, for some, at the expense of others? Curator: Perhaps. But one can admire its formal rigor. Even today, after 120 or so years. Editor: Which speaks to the powerful formal qualities and equally important social narrative frozen in time. Curator: Indeed. It is an object lesson. Editor: Certainly.