Anton onder bamboe op Ma retraite 1903 - 1910

Hendrik Doijer made this photographic print, 'Anton onder bamboe op Ma retraite,' and it’s like stepping into a forest made of lines. The bamboo is this crazy thicket, a wall of dark strokes against a paler sky. It’s a process of layering, of darks and lights wrestling it out. The photograph is all about texture. The eye dances from the feathery leaves to the smooth bamboo trunks, all rendered in shades of gray. The light is so important here. It’s not about hiding the process but showing it, giving you all the layers. Look at the bamboo itself, how it shoots up and across. It’s a metaphor for growth, for the wild, untamed energy of nature. It puts me in mind of some of the dense, all-over compositions of someone like Jackson Pollock. Both artists, in their own ways, capture a sense of boundless energy and the beauty of complexity. The art reminds us that there is space for the ambiguous and the strange.