De Hospitaalgebouwen 1921 - 1922

This photograph of hospital buildings is in the Rijksmuseum, and we don't know who made it, which is kind of amazing. The sepia tone gives everything a kind of antique feel, and you can almost smell the chemicals used to develop the image. It’s all about the texture here, right? The way the light catches on the leaves of the trees, the rough surfaces of the buildings. There's this weird little patch of lighter tone in the middle ground that's really catching my eye. It's like a glitch in the matrix, or maybe just a trick of the light. Whatever it is, it throws the whole picture off in a way that's kind of exciting. I'm thinking about other artists who play with photography, like Gerhard Richter, and how they embrace the imperfections and accidents that happen along the way. It's like they're saying, "Hey, life is messy, and art should be too." Anyway, this photograph feels like a reminder that art is always a conversation, a back-and-forth between intention and chance, control and chaos.