Bert Teunissen

Over the past decade, Dutch photographer Bert Teunissen (1959 born in Ruurlo) has documented hundreds of old European homes. These are rudimentary yet cultured settings aglow with a warm, timeless atmosphere; spaces in which a primary interior feature is that of natural light. The homes pictured here were built before the World Wars, before electricity was a standard feature, a time when sunlight played a pivotal role in the conception of architecture. Teunissen renders these last vestiges of old Europe with a palette and sensitivity to light that recall Dutch masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt. Domestic Landscapes dovetails with two traditions—the use of the camera to record the culturally vestigial and a strain of portraiture that looks at subjects in their own environs.