Contents
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Status: Collect > Document > Analyse > Improve |
Introduction
53.01 Landscape > Landscape: Rivers and streams
          
During the nineteenth century Henry W. Taunt photographed the Thames[1], John H. Hillers the Colorado River on the Powell Expeditions through the Grand Canyon[2], Carleton W. Watkins the Columbia, Henry Peter Bosse the Mississippi[3] but where are the studies of the Rhine, Danube, Seine, Amazon, Nile, Yangtze, Mekong and so many others? It is difficult to believe that scientific, geological and hyrographic surveys including photographs were not done and these still need to be located.[4]
Photographers
53.02 Landscape > Camille de Silvy - River Scene (1858)
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
 
The best landscape photographs go beyond the arrangements and proportions of land, water and sky and take the viewer into the realms of memory and emotion.
Here we see the Huisne river near the birthplace of Camille Silvy[5] as he saw it in 1858 with the bands of clouds, wooden rural buildings and brick walls scattered on the left bank with column-like trees cutting vertical lines into the sky - a boat with a man sitting in it and a woman standing close by. On the right there is the meadow with some people on the grass. We can see the details of the picture but it represents far more than that - it has within it a harmony of elements that we feel comfortable with. We can all wish that we had been on the bridge that day with him and we yearn for past that has gone but are glad that he has shared a moment of Arcadian tranquility with us.
All is not as simple as it seems in this Arcadia; the print is a complex combination print that merges different images to create the harmonious whole. In the book on this image by Mark Haworth-Booth[6] he argues the intriguing point that it is proto-impressionist - bringing together the edge of a town where it melds into a rural setting and at the same time mixes the social levels of the society with the country bourgeoisie and the working class.
In 1990 one of the leading exponents of color photography, Stephen Shore, was commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Museum to re-photograph the location and he obtained a very different image.[7] You get a rephotographic shot of a place as it is but with none of the emotion. It is not that Stephen Shore is not a great photographer, he is, but his approach and sensibilities to landscape photography are totally different.
[Thanks to Mark Haworth-Booth for his insights on this.]
53.03 Landscape > Henry W. Taunt: The River Thames (1872)
  
The book A New Map of the River Thames from Oxford to London (1872) by Henry W. Taunt[8] used tipped-in albumen prints that were added to maps of the River Thames in England showing locations of interest. Taunt (1842-1922)[9] was a professional photographer based in Oxford.
53.04 Landscape > Carleton E. Watkins: Columbia River
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
        
53.05 Landscape > Henry P. Bosse: Views on the Mississippi River
About this photographer | Photographs by this photographer
        
Henry Peter Bosse (1844-1903)[10] was a civil engineer, draftsman, cartographer and photographer who took made cyanotypes to document his work along the upper Mississippi River.[11] Railroad companies needed bridges over the river and he documented them in his 1893 album Views on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minn and St. Louis, Mo. 1883-1891. Interest in his photographs was renewed when an album came up at a Sotheby's auction in 1990.
Rivers
53.06 Landscape > Paris: The Seine
                
Footnotes
- Λ Henry W. Taunt, 1872, A New Map of the River Thames from Oxford to London
- Λ William Culp Darrah, 1949, ‘Beaman, Fennemore, Hillers, Dellenbaugh, Johnson, and Hattan‘, Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 1-4, pp. 491–503; Don D. Fowler, 1972, Photographed All the Best Scenery': Jack Hillers' Diary of the Powell Expeditions, 1871–1875, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press); Don D. Fowler, 1989, The Western Photographs of John K. Hillers: 'Myself in the Water', (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press); Don D. Fowler, 2012, Cleaving an Unknown World: The Powell Expeditions and the Scientific Exploration of the Colorado Plateau, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press)
- Λ For the album of Henry Peter Bosse - Bosse, Henry Peter, 1893, Views on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minn and St. Louis, Mo. 1883-1891 [Album containing 169 oval cyanotypes each with a hand-written ink title. The album was shown at the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago]
- Λ If you have information on photographic surveys of rivers please let me know.
- Λ Mark Haworth-Booth, 1992, Camille Silvy: River Scene, France, (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum); Mark Haworth-Booth, 2010, Camille Silvy: Photographer of Modern Life, (London: National Portrait Gallery)
- Λ Mark Haworth-Booth, 1992, Camille Silvy: River Scene, France, (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum)
- Λ Stephen Shore, 1990, "The River Huisne, Nogent-le-Rotrou", C-type chromogenic print (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 97.XM.40.14)
www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=112664
Stephen Shore decribed the scene:
As I stood on the bridge crossing the River Huisne, holding a copy of the [Camille] Silvy print in front of me and examining it in detail to determine its exact vantage point and framing, I was stunned by the changes I saw. Nearly everything in the scene was different or transformed. The trees in Silvy's original had long since disappeared, the stately old trees there now had not even been planted in Silvy's time. Some of the houses had fallen into disrepair, others had been renovated and now, a hundred years later, the renovations themselves looked old. The growth, again, and alteration that had taken place in this apparent changeless scene were astonishing.
- Λ Malcolm Graham, 1973, Henry Taunt of Oxford: A Victorian Photographer, (Oxford Illustrated Press); Bryan Brown (ed.), England of Henry Taunt: A Victorian Photographer, (Routledge); Susan Read (ed.), Thames of Henry Taunt, (Sutton Publishing); Malcolm Graham and Laurence Waters, 2006, Oxford Then and Now: From the Henry Taunt Collection, (Sutton Publishing); Graham Diprose and Jeff Robins, 2007, The River Thames Revisited: In the Footsteps of Henry Taunt, (Frances Lincoln Publishers)
- Λ 14,000 photographs by Henry W. Taunt are held by English Heritage and there are further collections at Oxfordshire County Council: Oxfordshire Studies and the River and Rowing Museum at Henley.
- Λ For the album of Henry Peter Bosse - Bosse, Henry Peter, 1893, Views on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minn and St. Louis, Mo. 1883-1891 [Album containing 169 oval cyanotypes each with a hand-written ink title. The album was shown at the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago];
Books on Peter Henry Bosse and his work - Anfinson, John. O., 1996, Henry Bosse's Views on the Upper Mississippi River, (MN, St Paul: Army Corps of Engineers); Neuzil, Mark, 2001, Views on the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse, (University of Minnesota Press) isbn-10: 0816636478 isbn-13: 978-0816636488 [Foreword by Marry A. Foresta]; Wehrenberg, Charles, 2002, Mississippi Blue: The Photographs Henry P. Bosse, (Twin Palms)
TV documentary of Peter Henry Bosse - KCTA Public Television, 1991, Mississippi Minnesota: Henry P Bosse - Photographer, (KCTA)
- Λ In 1883 Mark Twain's book Life on the Mississippi, (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.) was published and it gives his account of being a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River.
alan@luminous-lint.com |
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Henry P. Bosse
Anfinson, John. O., 1996, Henry Bosse's Views on the Upper Mississippi River, (MN, St Paul: Army Corps of Engineers) [Δ]
Bosse, Henry Peter, 1893, Views on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis, Minn and St. Louis, Mo. 1883-1891 [Album containing 169 oval cyanotypes each with a hand-written ink title. The album was shown at the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago] [Δ]
KCTA Public Television, 1991, Mississippi Minnesota: Henry P Bosse - Photographer, (KCTA) [Δ]
Neuzil, Mark, 2001, Views on the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse, (University of Minnesota Press) isbn-10: 0816636478 isbn-13: 978-0816636488 [Foreword by Marry A. Foresta] [Δ]
Wehrenberg, Charles, 2002, Mississippi Blue: The Photographs Henry P. Bosse, (Twin Palms) isbn-10: 0944092985 isbn-13: 978-0944092989 [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
Henry P. Bosse (1844-1903) • Henry P. Bosse (1844-1903) • Jarret Schecter • Camille Silvy (1834-1910) | Home > Themes > Landscape > Landscape types > Rivers and streams
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