Gezicht op de Rijn te Deutz c. 1860 - 1870

Curator: Ah, "Gezicht op de Rijn te Deutz," a photograph captured somewhere between 1860 and 1870, most likely as an albumen print, by Anselm Schmitz. Editor: It’s strangely compelling, isn’t it? All that brown sepia...it gives off this intensely industrial feeling, like something momentous is just about to happen along that riverbank. Curator: Yes, that heavy light adds to the mood! You can almost feel the shift, the burgeoning industrial age poised right there on the shores of the Rhine. Note how Schmitz frames the railway cars so prominently in the composition. Editor: And what a juxtaposition, that jumble of materials! Look at those railroad cars, laden with... I assume those are rocks or minerals from upriver. Hard labour and nature right up against each other, processed for distribution. I wonder where they are headed, and how these natural goods become value added through processing... Curator: Precisely! I always imagine this landscape as a snapshot of time suspended. The older architecture of the buildings barely visible in the background, in such striking contrast to the very, very foreground focus: commerce, transport, resource extraction. Schmitz makes you reflect on what it means to modify a space for function, but still in such a beautifully crafted print. Editor: It's as though the artist wants to subtly imply these processes were becoming one with the flow and rhythm of life along the Rhine, embedded as just another piece of labor. This photo is a piece of infrastructure itself, really—documenting and solidifying an industrialized moment for posterity's sake. Curator: A very good point, indeed. It gives us such insight into how even art can inadvertently endorse historical viewpoints through presentation of time and context. Thank you for this reflection; a valuable point of view. Editor: Absolutely, and thank you! That quiet observation from the shore makes you want to think more deeply about the artist's engagement with the changes around him—quite marvelous, this unassuming scene!