Restanten van de Tempio della Fortuna Augusta in Pompeï c. 1860 - 1900

Curator: Gazing at this image, I feel an odd sense of timelessness mixed with palpable loss. The harsh light, the skeletal structures...it's as if time has become another layer of ash. Editor: Well said! It is haunting, isn’t it? What you're looking at is a gelatin silver print by Giorgio Sommer, entitled “Restanten van de Tempio della Fortuna Augusta in Pompeï,” placing its creation somewhere between 1860 and 1900. Here, displayed in the Rijksmuseum, Sommer captured the remnants of the Temple of Fortune in Pompeii. Curator: Fortune… such a bitterly ironic dedication given what we know befell the city. The photograph itself seems to emphasize this irony. The temple looms, yet it’s incomplete, ravaged. The surviving stones look like teeth in a skull. It brings to mind the ephemeral nature of human ambition versus the enduring power of natural forces. Editor: Absolutely. Temples, after all, represent humanity's yearning for control, for permanence. And what strikes me is how Sommer framed this shot— the angle, the light. It feels intentional, this sense of desolation, right? It speaks not only of a lost city but perhaps to the photographer’s own contemplation of mortality. Do you think he sought to evoke a feeling that fortune may favour us one moment and destroy us the next? Curator: I'd venture yes. Fortune isn't just about wealth, but also destiny and chance, both personal and collective. To see it framed amidst ruins…the visual weight of it... One wonders what that word Fortuna evoked in those who first looked upon this scene, and the hopes they projected onto her before the fateful eruption. It is this symbolic significance attached to images through history, their emotional afterlife in our visual lexicon, that truly captures my interest. Editor: A striking thought indeed, a fitting consideration. This photographic still-life is, after all, charged with layers that invite a moment’s pause. A contemplation on fate if you will, through the photographer's eyes.