Leendert Blok - Silent Beauties

Leendert Blok experimented with color photography and the use of the panoramic format. In the 1920s, 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 portrayed flowers as objects of desire, using the Autochrome Lumière technique. For Blok, photography related 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.