Rievaulx Abbey 1854

Curator: Before us is Roger Fenton's photograph, "Rievaulx Abbey," taken in 1854. It captures the haunting beauty of the abbey ruins. Editor: It's incredibly atmospheric! There’s a serenity and yet also a real melancholy in the tones of that albumen print. The textures of the stone practically jump out at you. Curator: Absolutely. Fenton was working during a time when photography was heavily debated as fine art. Photographs of gothic ruins became quite popular and served a commercial function, reproduced as travel souvenirs to be circulated for mass consumption, as well as displayed in public exhibitions to convey Britain's historical identity and taste. Editor: And it shows how artists working with photography sought to mimic or elevate its status alongside painting. Here, the light filters in—a picturesque composition highlighting textures. You almost see Fenton battling the medium itself to create a "painterly" effect. Do you think that struggle lends itself to the emotion evoked from the ruin? Curator: Definitely, think of what was at stake. With its subject, photography engages Romantic ideals about the sublime in nature but through a lens—a technological creation subject to social conditions. In those days, long exposure times made photographing architecture much easier than photographing moving people. Fenton had to navigate the science as much as aesthetics. Editor: That is such an important aspect! Thinking about that photographic process...all that manual labor. It reveals so much about class, the artist, and photographic subjects themselves. Today this Romantic ruin carries a sense of history. Who profits from displaying that nostalgia? Curator: You hit upon the point entirely. How do we read these images of the past? What does the marketing of that sublime image tell us? What sort of national or cultural stories were being constructed? And at what price to the un-photographed? Editor: It’s still haunting to see it depicted. It all encourages further questioning. Curator: Indeed. A single image, many avenues to explore.