WOODBURY AND PAGE: PHOTOGRAPHERS JAVA

No matter what we read about the Netherlands Indies and no matter
how evocative the written images may be, we are still unable to
capture a real picture of that society. We may know a bit about
what happened and we can shape a form of the culture and the
nature in our minds, but if the picture approaches anywhere near
what the reality was is a moot point.
The Royal Institute for Linguistics and Anthropology has just
published a wonderful book which may help us to get as close as
a view of the reality of the Netherlands Indies as we ever can.
The book 'Woodbury and Page, Photographers Java' by Steven
Wachlin is a gem to be cherished. It contains 175 photos taken by
Woodbury and Page, two Englishmen who set up their shop in 1857
and saw it grow into the most important and prolific photographic
firm to have operated in the Netherlands Indies in the 19th
century. The firm, which continued to run well after the
departure of the original owners, carried its activities into the
twentieth century. 

By Dick van der Meij

The book consists of two parts. The first describes the
activities of the firm and introduces the photographers
themselves. The second part takes us on a journey around the
Archipelago as it was more than a century ago. 
The photos are beautiful and, moreover, are well reproduced. They
take us back to a world which no longer exists, but of which some
remnants may still be found. These remnants are mostly of an
architectural or scenic nature and sometimes time even seems to
have stood still. For instance, the picture of the giant ogre at
Singasara, East Java, was taken in 1860. The statue is still
there. I took a picture of it in 1980 which is almost identical.
The palace in Bogor, the mosque in Banten, the Willemskerk in
Batavia, now Gereja Immanuel in Jakarta, are still in much the
same shape as they were a century or more ago. 
The most salient change is in the people, their dress, their
expressions, sometimes their culture. No elaborate balls can ever
again be held in De Harmonie as the building was demolished in
the 1980s. Residenten, Regenten a whole layer in society and the
culture they built around them have gone. Then there were the
rajas of the Outer Islands, what remains of them is a mere shadow
of former splendour. The old statues which adorned the cities
have been taken from their pedestals to be replaced by others.
It is interesting to contemplate a work such as this on
contemporary Indonesia to enable us to compare two worlds on the
same spot of land but separated by what seems to be an aeon of
time.
The book is an important tool for forming a picture of the
continuity and change to be found in the world today, with its
roots in a past we can see and contemplate.

Steve Wachlin (1948) is a photo historian. Following the
completion of his studies in art history at the University of
Amsterdam he co-organized exhibitions and published on the
history of nineteenth century commercial photography in the
Netherlands, the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia), Surinam,
and the Middle East.

At the time this book appeared, an exhibition of the work of
Woodbury & Page borrowed from the holdings of the Royal Institute
for Anthropology and Linguistics was held in the Rijksmuseum voor
Volkenkunde in Leiden (National Museum of Ethnology), which ran
from 27 May to 28 August 1994.

Wachlin, Steven, 'Woodbury and Page: Photographers Java', KITLV
Press, Leiden 1994, 215 pp, 175 photo's

FOR ORDERS AND INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
KITLV Press
P.O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden