Through the window of early photography, Scott Merrillees has the long lost world from Jakarta back to life in his brought book BATAVIA in nineteenth century photographs , which ever presents the most comprehensive photographic record of the city from the late 1850s, as the earliest known photographs were taken through to the last years of the 19th century.
Published by Southeast Asia specialist, Archipelago Press, an imprint of Singapore-based Editions Didier Millet, the 155 rare photos book - many never before published - were drawn from leading institutional and private collections in Europe and Australia and of the author submitted personal collection, all carefully reproduced in the original sepia tone.
to find the sophisticated photographs in this volume are all the more surprising considering that they were taken in the age of the wet collodion plate, a thin piece of glass coated with a wet and sticky chemical emulsion was sensitive to light. The glass plates were a very early form of photographic "negative" and are now almost non-existent and impossible to find. They often broke because they were very thin and fragile, or were wiped clean by the photographer so they can be reused. The glass plate negatives were used photos with a solution, including protein (eg 'protein') and thus were known as "albumen prints", coated printing on very thin paper.
playback quality and clarity are so detailed that you can make up pebbles, shadow and tire marks on the road, waves and reflections on the water, grass along a path and the leaves of the trees against the sky finely etched. In a 1880 photo of the museum of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, the National Museum today, the open windows without bars priceless collections show visible inside.
the captivating albumen prints from the Woodbury & Page collection, the images of Batavia landscape and colonial buildings areParticularly noteworthy covers. In collaboration, Walter Woodbury and James Page was a photographic company in 1857 to produce the images further and sell long after Woodbury returned to England in 1863, and untimely death side in 1865.
researched, careful observations are noteworthy because in this early period photographs were rarely dated. a date to a scene that requires bulky and maddeningly difficult research. The author Excerpts eyewitness accounts from travelogues, photo albums, logs, ship passengers, financial reports, contemporary magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias and biographies in English, Dutch, French and Indonesian.
Notwithstanding the exponential and unchecked expansion of today's mega-city, an unexpectedly high number of the 19th century landmark of Batavia survive until today, although the structures have often been completely rebuilt, re-shaped roofs and ornaments in the last mined 150 years; the chicken market bridge over Kali Besar in Kota, the Portuguese Church on Jl. Pangeran Jayakarta, Jakarta is the oldest building still used for its original purpose, and the Yin De Yuan temple on Jl. Kemenangan, one of the oldest Chinese temple in Jakarta. It would be fascinating, these old buildings placed in "before and after" format in addition to the same scene to be seen today.
On a photo of Koningsplein (now Medan Merdeka), the reader can almost refreshing breezes blowing feel freely across the vast open empty grass plain, an area so huge that it took 1.5 hours to go , At that time, visitors also complained that the city was an area spread so big that it "uncozy," lacked "cohesion" and that to take cars everywhere one horse needs because of the long distances that had to be covered!
chapter Molenvliet (Mill Way) entitled, now Jl. Gajah Mada and Jl. Hayam Wuruk, is a wonderful series of portraits of Batavia's leading 19th century hotels - such as the Grand Hotel des Indes - accompanied by details, so intimate and kinetic that the reader, voyeuristic looking back in time, the clink of may porcelain in the bustling dining rooms hear the clip clop of horses in the broad atria, the splash of water fountains in the large gardens worn as orchestral music on the evening breeze. This internationally known hotels were the choice of visiting dignitaries and the center of the magnificent features of the elite of Batavia colonial society.
The native people of the time has the goings on of been awestruck wealthy merchant class and at the imposing colonial buildings with beautiful white columns and government buildings such as the Stadhuis (Town Hall), now Jakarta History Museum. With only two exceptions (the famous painter Raden Saleh and his wife), the people are not the explicit themes of the photographs. The overwhelming emphasis in the book is on the topographical and architectural landscape of the city
Unfortunately, completed in 1815, many handsome buildings such as the Harmony Society clubhouse, -. Known as the venue for grand balls and state functions - were demolished to widen roads or to make way for office or shopping malls. One wonders how much more attractive the city would be today, and what an advantage their presence would mean for the tourism industry, were these graceful old buildings spared.
The photographs are a deeper dimension in the text with impressions and comments from visitors, officials and travelers. We learn many interesting insights into the period of decades, such as hotels, restaurants, clubs, Mercerie, bakeries, watchmakers, jewelers, lavishly equipped shops and department stores emerged, rose to prosperity and ultimately suffered misfortune, their European owners and local staff nameless disappear in the mists of time. The rise and fall of fortunes device is often accompanied by a rich chronicle of lascivious scandals and gossip of the day. Detailed biographies of successful Dutch entrepreneurs and the genealogies of their ancestors, who settled, lived and died in the East Indies by generations are also available.
Scott Merrillees' insatiable curiosity and commitment has resulted in a collection of achingly nostalgic images of excellent quality, which succeeds admirably - in image and words -. to transport the reader back to Jakarta from an earlier age, which is little understood today, and largely disappeared
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