This photograph of young farmers on their way to a dance was taken in Germany in 1914 by August Sander. Except they weren’t farmers. And the dance they were on their way to was World War I. To learn more about Sun Basket, go to
Guest host John Green delves into the real story behind this iconic photograph.
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I think that this is a compelling photograph on its own. While interesting, I think that information about the subjects’ true occupations, the war and their fates gets in the way of evaluating it as a photograph. It results in treating August Sander as a social historian rather than as an artist.
That said, it’s the first video that I’ve seen on this channel and I’ve subscribed.
Very cool bro', thank you. Didn't PBS also give us Sesame Street? That was a cool show, with other levels of higher meaning for adults too.
a wonderful video to a moment frozen in time and a brilliance of mind adding depth of life into it .
So you're trying to make us sympathize with Nazis? What a waste of my time
defenition of over interpretation
Typically I really love your videos but this one really seems like a stretch. The way the photograph is explained makes it seem like the photographer knew what was going to happen. I feel like the video added meaning to the photograph that the artist did not intend.
You have been on way too much weed
What a great presentation. I used to think it was quaint when primitive peoples in far-off lands said that photographs would "steal your soul." Now I think they were right. A photograph can only tell what a person looked like at that moment, and the interpretation that follows depends on the viewer. NOT the subject. It takes a lot of additional information to put the photograph in context and explain what had happened to the subject.
This is the best channel on YouTube, I love you guys… More videos please!!!
It's not eFalt, it's Ewalt
You need to button your button-down shirt. Put that OCD to work.
If they're farmers on a muddy road… why are their shoes so clean?
@
This video is just…beautiful.
Honestly didn't think id get through a 9 minute video about a photograph…boy was I wrong
Equates with the powerful image of three Confederate POWs at Gettysburg.
Loved this!
The iron mine the three worked at was the Saint Andreas mine in Bitzen. In 1931, just a few years before that "dance" would repeat itself, the mine was declared depleted.
88 years later, the YouTube algorithm decides to recommend this video to a guy living just fifteen kilometres from there.
And a nice video it was! Really detailed yet not overly lengthy analysis, thank you.
Well done, Thanks.
"looking like the kind of trouble you wouldn't mind getting into" damn i miss my john green days
This video reminds me of a photograph I saw recently at my local city art museum. The museum was displaying its history in a series of old photos. Included were images of student artists who attended an art school attached to the museum. In one of the photos, three young men, students at the school, posed for a photo – casually dressed, arms across each other's shoulders – smiling into the camera. The picture was dated 1938. There was no way they were going to avoid the coming war. All I could think when I stared at the image was – I hope they made it out alright…
Thank you, I really enjoyed this. I have always admired this photo – they look so rakish.
Amizade
Not famers. Not boys.
It is in an essence, a picture of innocence..
I think you're reading too much in what's the photography. Sander was also about the sheer beauty of the sheen of the B&W photo itself, much like an Imogen Cunningham or Paul Strand is not only about subject but the beauty of the actual print. Sander was about placement of subject and landscape, the relationship of the subject to its viewer – like Cartier-Bresson. But please stop over-interpreting photography!!
I thought this was going to be about the flying saucer that these guys just got out of that never made it into the picture… But no, it was a pleasant commentary of the esoteric nature of life.. very enjoyable for a change..
Relentless trail of luggage heavy
Winding routes,
Patiently waiting just another day
As the three passers by
for just a second stay
Hand gripped cane captured in a frame
Anxious on the way to a dance
Back to the mines on monday
They will escape this place someday
Heads in the sky
Boot tops clean bottoms muddy
Tailored second wave,
Fruits from the revolution
Smug fit and pretty
Upper class
from the frame of their past
Something else comes so suddenly
The dance has come
The suits are fitted
It's a blast and it came so fast
Fruits of the revolution
Goodbye klein you where a good son
Meat sack severed by the horizon
One down, two to go
The rest got off, just a scuff
The third picture of the 3 farmers with bikes looks weird. The first and second guys look as if there heads are superimposed on. https://youtu.be/3AVNhTi9pzM?t=14
I don't believe for a second that the photographer took this photograph with these interpretations in mind. It's simply a well composed shot about which you and others have chosen to formulate hindsight interpretations that for the most part could not have been part of the photographers original thinking.
"Those who tread the globe are but a handful to the tribe that lies in its bosom…" —Thanatopsis, W.C. Bryant
Basically, they are the KKK
Wow! Very interesting! If I had seen that photo I would not know the points you made about that photo
“Shoes in the mud, heads in the air”. I think I may take an Art appreciation class. Maybe learn how to look at art, see the unspoken words about art.
Learning any new thing is kewl
Wow this was very interesting! Great thoughts man, thanks
We would be known as the generation that smiled their life away living two lives: one in real life, the other is social media.
“THE DANCE THEY DIDNT KNOW ABOUT?!” ….. FFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Its a still story about a never ending summer in the german fields, transports you to a place you feel but never been in, just like a good song.
I watch this video, I look into your eyes, wonder how you feel. You could not know you'll get that cold, curl up in bed and drink hot chocolate to recover.
No, but when working so hard on this video, it can be expected.
In the same way expected to die when you're fighting a war.
Typical The Art Assignment still at it after all of these years rewriting their own version of biased warped historical context and injecting it into art that should remain completely NEUTRAL territory; specifically ALL ART. BAN PBS – Democratic Party Socialist-Fascist Corporately Funded by the likes of the Koch Brothers and more…
What a history lesson.
I saw this photo at least twenty years ago in a newspaper where it was described as three young Austrians on their way to a dance. The commentary on this video is incredibly beautiful in it's description of the photo and all that is behind it and all that is to come. Wonderful.
This would be a good movie
Just discovered your channel. I love what you did here. Great work. I'm looking forward to more!!
Wow. This was a YouTube recommendation. This was beautiful and insightful, maybe I’m more susceptible right now as I’m deep in grief for my best friend who died suddenly two weeks ago but this just made me feel everything and all the pictures of my friend over her too short life paraded through my mind. What a find, thank you YouTube!
>quoting Philip Roth
hold this like
HOLY SHIT IT'S STEVE ROGERS BUT FROM HYDRA
This is so great!!
The moment John said "Westerwald", I was like, "Wait, I'm in Westerwald!". And turns out, the village is like an hour from where I live.
being from a rural village,these 3 guys were most likely from farm-labor families,so in a certain sense,they could be called farmers. BUT…being very young men ,they were optimistic ,just through the fact of their youth AND being young and in a NEW century,they saw themselves{perhaps?} as part of a more "citified" sense of dressing-up in a business suit{instead of holiday peasant garb}. Also ,working in the mines was often an labor alternative to {perhaps?} daily labor on a farm. My ancestors were both rural and citified German peasants,who left Germany before the WW1. The constant convulsions of social and political upheavals caused many Germans {late19th century,early20th century} to leave Germany and come to USA.