Custom Search
|
Custom Search
|
 |
|
Categories:
Victorian landscape photographer Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) described his lifelong project in simple terms: to find "the best spot with the best view." However, this self-trained but precocious man, who seemed to delight in giving away much of the work he produced, is now considered one of the most gifted American photographers of the 19th century. Perhaps best known for his pictures of the then newly discovered scenic wonder Yosemite, Watkins made thousands of remarkable, sophisticated, and historically important images that provide an unparalleled visual record of the western United States. In his spectacular depictions of the West Coast's natural resources and the industrial outposts nested within them by way of the California Gold Rush and the Central and Southern Pacific Railroads, Watkins captured the sense of adventure and expansionist enthusiasm of the mid-1800s American imagination. In the photo Sugar Loaf Islands, Farallons, the combination of grand scale and lush detail draws the viewer into an arresting image in which a single jagged rock emerges from a smoky mist. Only upon closer inspection does one discover that the shiny pebbles at its base are actually about a hundred glistening seals who loll along the beach of a mammoth island. Throughout his 50-year career, Watkins traveled tirelessly under adverse conditions to remote sites, often by mule. He carried cumbersome equipment, including his giant camera, which was custom-made by a cabinetmaker. And he secured his hard-earned images on fragile glass-plate negatives. Watkins's adventuring laid the groundwork for his pioneering in the nascent art and technique of photography. His work commanded wonder and respect from large audiences on both coasts, and the sheer beauty of his pictures helped set a national policy of scenic conservation that preceded the present system of national parks. Carleton Watkins: The Art of Perception is a companion volume to the first large-scale exhibition to look at this photographer's work from a critical, art-historical perspective. The show originates at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., through the year 2000. Produced using state-of-the-art tritone printing, this catalog includes 125 of Watkins's best images--stereo cards and multipart panoramic works among them. Accompanying the photographs are compelling and informative essays by Douglas Nickel, associate curator of photography at SFMOMA, and Maria Morris Hambourg, curator in charge of the Department of Photographs at the Met, as well as Peter E. Palmquist's notes on the plates, a list of selected references, and a chronology. --A.C. Smith -- Amazon.com Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) is considered by many to be the greatest American photographer of the nineteenth century. This companion volume to a major traveling exhibition is the most beautiful book on Carleton Watkin s work ever published. Produced using state-of-the-art tritone printing, it showcases over 100 of the photographer s best images, including several of Watkins s extraordinary multipart panoramic works. From breathtaking pictures of Yosemite, the Pacific Coast and the scenery along the Columbia River to photographs of the vast mining tracts of the Sierra Nevada and the towns springing up along the recently built Central and Southern Pacific railroads, these images provide an unparalleled visual record of the West. The accompanying introduction by Maria Morris Hambourg, curator in charge of the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and essay by Douglas R. Nickel, Associate Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, not only place Watkins s work in its photo-historical perspective, but also in context with his artistic contemporaries: Edgar Degas and Paul Cezanne. In his essay, Nickel states, (Watkins s) photographs defeat interpretations of the narrative or symbolic sort because they aspired to be something altogether different from traditional art: they aspired to be perceptual, to engage the sensibilities of their beholders in an exercise of ocular gratification and visual intelligence. Compare prices:
See also:
| ||
|
