Gezelschap op rotsformaties in Huelgoat 1901

This small photograph called ‘Gezelschap op rotsformaties in Huelgoat’, or ‘Company on rock formations in Huelgoat’, sits in the Rijksmuseum collection. Look at the sepia tones, almost like an old memory or a dream. You can see the figures perched on these giant rocks, maybe pondering the landscape, maybe each other. Delizy captured a sense of contemplation. The shadows and light play across the rocks, almost as if the landscape itself is breathing. You wonder what it must have been like to lug all that equipment into the wilderness, to try and capture a single moment in time. That tree on the right feels so contemporary. And it makes me think of Cezanne, and his struggles with trying to capture depth and volume in the landscape. What is the relationship between photography and painting? Do photographs, like paintings, allow for multiple interpretations?