Gezicht op Molen de Eendracht aan de Vijfhoekweg in Amsterdam c. 1881

Andreas Theodorus Rooswinkel captured this image of the Eendracht mill in Amsterdam with a camera. Immediately, one is struck by the sepia tones, lending a nostalgic air. Note the strong vertical lines of the windmill's body contrasted by the horizontal lines of its sails. The house mirrors the geometric forms of the windmill through the angles of the roof. The textures here are varied: the rough, aged surfaces of the building materials, juxtaposed with the soft foliage. Rooswinkel uses perspective to compress the space, creating a unified plane that makes it challenging to understand the spatial relationships between the objects. The photographic process itself flattens the depth, which challenges traditional notions of pictorial space and invites contemplation on how photography transforms three-dimensional reality into a two-dimensional representation. Through Rooswinkel’s manipulation of form and texture, the photograph becomes more than a mere representation; it is a study in visual structure and semiotic representation.