The entire left wall is green. Books stand, lie and lean packed across five shelves, and below them a table in the same green is set against the wall. The other three sides are built of rough stacked stone.
Light coming through the two latticed windows has laid a white patch on each wooden desktop. Judging by the length of the shadows, it is close to midday.
There are six desks. The chairs have backs made of thin slats, and two children sit at one desktop.
Nothing here is new. The grain has worn pale and rough, and the red floor still carries the marks of feet passing over it. An old classroom makes you think first of a household short on means, but it is hard to call a room that has filled five shelves like that a poor one.
A choice about what to obtain first is drawn inside this room. Books take up an entire wall, and the desks stay worn and remain in use.
The window frames are thick and the glass is divided into many panes. Beyond them a pine branch reaches into the upper part of the frame. It means that during class someone is bound to look at that branch. Learning does not happen only inside the room.
Look again at the lower right. The floor in that corner is dark, and on the dark side not a single desk has been placed. All six are gathered toward the left and the middle, where the window light falls.
The children would have moved their bodies toward the bright spot as they sat. The hands that build a classroom make the walls and the floor, but where to sit inside it is decided by the light.
A few minutes are enough for the white patch to cross to the next desktop. Which desk will fall dark then, the photograph does not tell us.
