Leendert Blok: Silent Beauties

In the 1920s the Dutch photographer Leendert Blok (1895–1986) worked in close collaboration with flower producers, supplying color prints and autochromes for the display catalogues in which growers presented the species they cultivated. His ground was the bulb country of the Bollenstreek; his instruments were the Autochrome Lumière process and, in some pictures, the panoramic format. Color photography was still an experimental field, and Blok was working in it early.

Blok photographed flowers one at a time — tulips, dahlias, daffodils, irises, hyacinths, peonies — against a plain dark ground. Muted tones and soft bronze hues, worked by chiaroscuro, give corolla, petals and buds a sculptural weight; the blooms are presented as objects of desire, and their variety is itself part of the argument. Almost nothing else enters the frame, so that attention settles on the flower and the fall of light across it.

For Blok, photography had to do above all with the gaze, and these pictures are built around looking: a dark field, light arriving slowly, a form held still until it reads as volume. The plain background and modeled light recall the vanitas still lifes of the Dutch Golden Age, while the isolated bloom carries something of the old botanical lantern slide, so that each flower becomes a sculpture. A German review placed the book in the lineage of Karl Blossfeldt’s plant photography.

Silent Beauties, published by Hatje Cantz in 2015, assembles work from that decade: 80 photographs across 176 pages, with texts by Gilles Clément, bound in half cloth at 197 × 265 mm, in English.

The collector’s case rests on the material. Autochromes made for growers’ catalogues are reproduced here, recording an early color practice that belonged to the horticultural trade; the images stand at once as commercial record and as still life. Seen together, they show a photographer returning to a narrow problem — a single bloom, a dark ground, the soft register of the autochrome — and finding variation across species. The book gives that work a historical frame and the scale to be studied.

Leendert Blok (1895–1986) experimented with color photography and the use of the panoramic format. In the twenties, the Dutch photographer worked in close collaboration with flower producers, providing color prints and autochromes for the display catalogues of the various species they cultivated. Blok captured flowers like objects of desire, using the Autochrome Lumière technique.

For Blok, photography relates above all to the gaze. Muted tones and soft bronze hues reveal a timeless world of flora, in which corolla, petals, and buds are sublimated by chiaroscuro. The flowers stand out against a plain dark background, alluding to the famous vanitas of the Dutch Golden Age. Tulips, dahlias, daffodils, irises, hyacinths, and peonies reveal themselves in all their glorious diversity. The photographs of Leendert Blok are reminiscent of botanists’ slides of yore, immersing us in the immanence of plant life, in which each flower becomes sculpture. (German edition ISBN 978-3-7757-4036-4)

Texts by: Gilles Clément
English
June 2015, 176 Pages , 80 Photos
half cloth
197mm x 265mm
ISBN:978-3-7757-4037-1

Publisher page editorial text:
| Pretty as a picture: early color photography from Dutch plant catalogues of the twenties
Leendert Blok (1895–1986) experimented with color photography and the use of the panoramic format. In the twenties, the Dutch photographer worked in close collaboration with flower producers, providing color prints and autochromes for the display catalogues of the various species they cultivated. Blok captured flowers like objects of desire, using the Autochrome Lumière technique.
For Blok, photography relates above all to the gaze. Muted tones and soft bronze hues reveal a timeless world of flora, in which corolla, petals, and buds are sublimated by chiaroscuro. The flowers stand out against a plain dark background, alluding to the famous vanitas of the Dutch Golden Age. Tulips, dahlias, daffodils, irises, hyacinths, and peonies reveal themselves in all their glorious diversity. The photographs of Leendert Blok are reminiscent of botanists’ slides of yore, immersing us in the immanence of plant life, in which each flower becomes sculpture. (German edition ISBN 978-3-7757-4036-4)

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