Forges 1875 - 1885

Curator: The overwhelming feeling is emptiness. It’s a silent photograph, but I can almost hear the clang of hammers fading. Editor: That's an interesting take. Let me introduce you to "Forges," a work from around 1875 to 1885 by Louis Lafon. It offers a fascinating glimpse into industrial life during that era, captured in monochrome. The photo is housed here at the Met. What stands out to you besides the silence you mention? Curator: The light. The way it streams in, almost religiously, through those enormous windows. Even in its harsh, unyielding depiction of labor, there’s this persistent spirituality of light that pervades everything. And all the windows create an affect of hope within industry. Editor: A perspective very attuned to symbolic undercurrents, which I appreciate. For me, the photograph underscores how industry physically shaped societies and individual workers’ places within it. This is also the very moment that photography began to influence and shift art’s very role in documentation. Curator: Exactly, but consider also the repeated shapes: the arched windows mirror the shape of the forges themselves, creating a closed loop. There's this constant reiteration that man is bound to this heavy labor. There is a harmony here, but one forged in submission. The picture makes the idea almost comforting, even when you realize it represents subjugation. Editor: I see your point about those mirroring forms. Perhaps this aestheticization is precisely what made such images palatable to a rising middle class, allowing them to feel comfortable consuming the products of such labor. Curator: It's not as if the working people in the photograph had an audience outside of the owners. And if this picture ended up in homes or the news, it changes our perception of how photography had changed society. We’ve just gone meta with this photograph, realizing the symbolic effect it now has by being displayed now at the Met. Editor: True, and seeing the lack of people, too, speaks volumes. Were they absent or just strategically omitted? Questions that prompt me to seek answers outside of just this one photograph, actually. Curator: So much more to find beyond the visual.