Sander, it is often said, constructed his pictures in archetec-tonic fashion, giving his subjects sufficient time to present themselves in an arrangement that felt right to them. But these characteristics are probably precisely what make the picture so interesting and have made it into the most-reproduced and most well-known of Sander’s photographs. Sander’s Young Farmers (original negative format: 43/4 x 61/2 inches) contains a good many oddities and contradictions. “Ernemann portable camera 3/18,” he noted about the Young Farmers “built-in Lucshutter release – time exposure no diaphragm – lens: Dagor, Heliar, Tessar, old lenses – Westendorf-Wehner plates – development meteolhydrochinon or pyro daylight.” In 1959, however, at an exhibition in the Cologne Rooms of the German Society for Photography, Sander, asked to comment on his picture, offered only technical details about the camera and chemical processes – not at all unusual for the times, but amazing for the “artist” August Sander. Sander himself explained nothing: in his remarks and theoretical explanations he was always remarkably reticent. Neither the fact that the photograph was made in the open air, nor the make and age of the camera – which first had to be carried to the site, fastened to a stand, and set up for the photograph – probably struck the men, inexperienced as they were with standard photographic practice, as unusual. In other words, he and the young farmers would have chosen the location of the photograph, decided in favor of a group portrait, and set the specific day and time. What might at first glance be misunderstood as ‘instantaneous’ photography is therefore actually the result of a carefully composed scene, probably preceded by Sander’s intensive preparatory conversation with the subjects. Nonetheless, the name of a certain Family Krieger is known – and nothing else, except that they were to be sent a dozen copies of the photograph: “12 cards” is noted by hand on the negative – probably a reference to printing them in the 4 x 6-inch cabinet format. Whether the negative numbered 2648 was the response to a portrait commission, we do not know. Was it the loyalty of the Rhineland bourgeoisie to the older, long established studios, or was it Sander’s understanding of the recompense he deserved for his photographs, that soon forced him to look for customers outside of Cologne? In any case, it is certain that Sander increasingly found his clientele in the nearby Westerwald region – a situation that could hardly have displeased him, since Sander, who had come from a simple background himself, had a great understanding and appreciation for the area and undoubtedly struck up a sympathetic relationship with the farmers who lived there. In Bavaria or Prussia, he probably would have sought the status of court photographer in the bourgeois Rhineland, however, he attempted to prove that he was among the best through the quality of his work and the correspondingly high prices he could ask for it. As the Wilhelmine Empire neared its end, he had the reputation – along with Hugo Erfurth and Hugo Schmolz – of being one of the leading photographers in Cologne. At the time of the photograph, August Sander was thirty-eight years old. But for the moment they let it slip from their minds, as they stop and turn, looking at us directly almost as if on command – and thus make us aware of another person, also present in the photograph without being visible: the man behind the camera. At any rate, we can be sure that the trio have a common goal. But surely the weekend or even the end of the workday offer additional grounds for ‘young farmers’ to wash themselves, shave, comb their hair, and draw the dark suit out of the closet. Are they brothers? friends? neighbors? It has often been claimed that the three are on their way to a dance in town – which at first seems a reasonable assumption. Where the three young men are coming from, or where they are headed, also remains unknown. But whether the picture was made before or after the outbreak of the First World War, felt by many of his contemporaries to mark the end of an epoch, seems not to have been particularly important to Sander. The parameters are fairly clear: August Sander titled his picture Young Farmers, 1914, thus indicating both the date of the photograph and the social status of the subjects. His book Antlitz der Zeit was outlawed and partially destroyed by the Nazis in 1936, but Sander’s ambitious undertaking today ranks among the most outstanding contributions to the New Objectivity in photography. The project, undertaken wholly at his own initiative and expense, found support only among his painter friends in the Rhineland area of Germany. In 1910, August Sander began a systematic attempt to portray and typologize his fellow countrymen.
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