Nieuwjaarsgroet met een foto van een stoomboot op een onstuimige zee omlijst door een hulst en een motief opgebouwd uit Amerikaanse vlaggen 1907 - 1930

Curator: This mixed-media work from between 1907 and 1930 combines print and photography to deliver an unusual message. It’s titled "New Year's Greeting with a photo of a Steamboat in a stormy sea, bordered by Holly and a motif of American flags". Editor: My immediate reaction is…unsettling. The turbulent sea dominates the central image. It's a landscape, but it conveys a sense of anxiety and precarity, which is juxtaposed rather ironically against the holiday cheer it otherwise intends to inspire. Curator: Indeed. Formally, the composition is quite striking. We see a stark contrast between the photograph itself, with its gray scale depicting an extremely turbulent seascape, set against the flat, decorative elements—holly branches and American flags, rigidly patterned. This creates an intriguing interplay between representation and artifice. Editor: Let's consider the placement of these "Happy New Year" cards in their historical moment. Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, technological advances fostered the quick dispersal of sentimental messages between loved ones, as the practice of sending greeting cards became industrialized and increasingly popular. What happens when new technologies and consumer practices circulate—not optimistic feelings of connection, but instead images of an aggressive and implicitly globalizing US Naval power? How are we meant to reconcile these complex, intersecting symbols and affective registers? Curator: Interesting, given the structural symbolism of the sea motif—which frequently mirrors emotional unrest or subconscious processes. On a formal level, the holly is striking—especially its juxtaposition with the sharp lines of the steamboat and American flags; there's a certain irony that seems intended in its natural form up against harsher militaristic and nationalistic symbols. Editor: It’s not so far-fetched to consider this piece's implicit themes of violence and power—to unpack, so to speak, its symbolic aggression and national anxieties, given the fraught international dynamics of the moment—as the United States was then forging its global, imperial presence through warfare. In this respect, "Happy New Year" feels almost like a declaration of war, despite the greeting's intended warm affect. Curator: That's certainly one way to interpret the confluence of all these different visual signifiers. I lean more toward seeing it as a rather curious example of early twentieth-century aesthetic sensibilities, the ways different print media can interrelate. The contrasting textures and subject matters make it unique. Editor: Indeed. I'll leave with its rather grim juxtaposition, the visual dissonance that it holds so effectively through both affect and symbolic visual rhetoric.