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Gustave Le Gray
Hollow Oak Tree, Fontainebleau
1855-1857
Albumen silver print, from glass negative
12 3/8 × 14 13/16 ins (31.5 × 37.7 cm) (image) 21 9/16 ins × 27 3/8 ins (54.8 × 69.6 cm) (mount)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bequest of Maurice B. Sendak, 2012, Accession Number: 2013.159.38
LL/67553
Curatorial description (Accessed: 10 June 2016)
Trained as a painter by the artist Paul Delaroche, Le Gray embraced photography within a decade of the medium’s public announcement, becoming one of its most admired practitioners. In the forest of Fontainebleau, he and painters worked side by side, producing images that earned him praise among his colleagues. His extraordinary understanding of light is particularly evident in his arboreal studies. This forest view transforms a backlit tree into a conduit of the Sublime. Sunlight pierces its branches, causing them to hover on the edge of immateriality.
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LuminousLint 
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