Gebouw van Rathkamp & Co. 1914 - 1919

This is a photograph of Gebouw van Rathkamp & Co, its maker is unknown. The building is captured in monochrome and framed with organic forms, and this immediately makes me think of a lithograph, an image worked and reworked on a printing stone. I can really feel for the artist here, trying to wrangle so much detail. You can see them trying to capture the light filtering through the leaves. It is easy to imagine the photographer trying to balance shadow and light on the surface of the building. The artist may have been thinking about the dialogue between nature and architecture, the rhythms of the building mirroring the branching forms of the tree. And isn't that what we are all trying to do? Making marks, building worlds, finding echoes in the everyday. Thinking about these unknown image-makers is a good reminder that we are all in this together.