Nederlands schip 1900 - 1922

This is Robert Julius Boers' "Nederlands schip," a photograph, or rather a pair of photographs, housed here at the Rijksmuseum. The gray-scale is interesting to me; how the world looked through this medium. Here, everything seems to blend into one another through similar tones: the water, the ship, the sky. It’s like looking at a world through a screen of muted color. The surface of the water is broken by light, those ephemeral gestures which suggest a subtle dynamism. The ship sits solidly on the water, its details captured with surprising clarity. It is a quiet stillness in the scene, a moment captured in time. Looking at this, I am reminded of the seascapes of James McNeill Whistler, how he embraced tone and atmosphere. Both artists understood the evocative power of suggestion, leaving room for the viewer to complete the image with their imagination. Art invites us to see the world anew.