Untitled (children in cornfield) c. 1940

Curator: This is C. Bennette Moore's "Untitled (children in cornfield)," a silver gelatin print, roughly 4x5 inches, housed at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It has the feel of something half-remembered, like a dreamscape of youth tinged with a little bit of unease. Curator: The cornfield, of course, evokes potent symbols. In many cultures, it represents growth, abundance, and the cycle of life. The children, emerging from this dense field, become figures of potential but also vulnerability. Editor: Yes, they're bathed in this ghostly light that makes them almost ethereal. Perhaps they're metaphors for something? Innocence lost? The road not yet taken? Curator: The photographic negative enhances the unsettling feeling, disrupting our expected visual cues. We’re forced to reconsider familiar symbols. Editor: I feel this image is both beautiful and unsettling, that the picture remains with you long after you've looked away. Curator: Precisely, and the reversal speaks volumes about how we perceive, remember, and reconstruct our past.