untitled

beech

gelatin silver print

studio-stamp on verso

The play of light and shadow of the mighty beech reminds of anthropomorphic forms. Presumably this photograph was taken as part of the series Bäume. Photographien schöner und merkwürdiger Beispiele aus deutschen Landen by Albert Renger-Patzsch, but did not make it into the book with the 65 selected trees published in 1962. About a very similar beech shape on plate 15 it is written: "Remarkable are the contrasts under which the parts of a tree have to live. The top is bathed in the brightest sunlight; but only a fraction of it reaches the interior of the crown, where the leaves are much softer and more delicate. The trunk, however, stands in the shady, cool, moist interior of the forest, or, in the case of the free-standing tree, is shaded by a large crown. The roots, finally, advance into cold depths, where the alternation of day and night, of summer and winter, is no longer perceptible. Between these opposites, however, a unified life structure weaves itself." dendrological explanation by Wolfgang Haber.
(Christoph Fuchs)