Overnachtingsplaats bij Gorge centrale, bij Newhalem, Washington [staat], Verenigde Staten 1936

This photograph of a lodge near the Gorge Centrale in Newhalem, Washington was made by Wouter Cool. It's not easy to tell when exactly, but its texture and the use of sepia tones give it an early twentieth-century feel. Cool's muted palette and the photograph's surface draw you into a particular kind of seeing. The building and surrounding landscape seem to blend together, as the trees creep up the walls, obscuring its boundaries. What’s interesting is how the tones are used to flatten the image out, as if he’s not trying to create an illusion of depth at all. Look how the texture of the grass, the roof tiles, and the trees in the background are all rendered in a similar way. It’s like the photograph itself becomes a kind of surface or skin, uniting everything. This makes me think of someone like Gerhard Richter, who understood photography as a kind of painting. For both, art is an ongoing conversation about how we see, think, and experience the world.