Isidore Van Kinsbergen - Photographic Styles

Photographic Styles

Isidore van Kinsbergen was known as a perfectionist. During his work in Borobudur, he selected the statues and panels which had been preserved best to take pictures of. He preferred a non-frontal angle, which shows a better depth of the relief and the skills of the relief maker. To stress its timeless beauty, Van Kinsbergen blocked out the original background in the negative film instead of putting up a black curtain during photographing.

There are some criticisms of Van Kinsbergen's photographs. He missed some details and sometimes his series was unbalanced. Trained as an artist, his works lacked archaeological descriptions, the main purpose of his contract. The printing quality, however, is beyond question and he had success showing the beauty of classical Javanese arts. His photographs were shown to the public both in the 1873 International Exhibition in Vienna and the 1878 World Exhibition in Paris. His works can be seen in several places, including in the National Museum in Amsterdam.