WHEN the German photographer, August Sander, set out to make a precise, neutral record of his compatriots in pre-war Germany, he was bound to fail. Few photographers working today could imagine that their images would operate without partaking of a system full of the stylistic flavours and habits of representation of their own times.
Working primarily through portraiture, his strongest links were with the photographer as artisan, as a worker called in to record appearance.
But even if he aimed for neutrality, what is fascinating now is the rich stylisation of Sander's photographs, in which even the stout, solemn burghers come to look profoundly theatrical, while those pictured with the hods, skillets and leather satchels that signify their roles in society look as though they are carry props.
The final success of Sander's work is exactly this failure of his attempt at dry recording. If the task he gave himself of assembling, collecting and classifying his countrymen, seems to speak eloquently about the society in which he moved, his pictorial choices seem even more informative. The solidity of his framing, placing figures in a space that they seem to occupy in comfort, but from which they seem unlikely ever to escape, delivers a resonant image of an unyielding society.