Bergtop van Mount Temple before 1897

Curator: Editor: Here we have “Bergtop van Mount Temple,” a photographic woodcut by Walter Dwight Wilcox, likely created before 1897. Looking at the stark contrast of the snow against the rock, and considering the early date, I feel a sense of the sublime, that overwhelming feeling of awe in the face of nature. How do you interpret this work, especially given the context of its creation? Curator: That sense of the sublime is understandable, but I wonder if we might also consider this image as a document of colonial expansion. Photography at this time was being used to map and "claim" territory, and these sublime images also played a role in promoting ideas of progress and resource exploitation. What stories about human presence, power, or dispossession might also be embedded in what appears to be a pristine landscape? Editor: I hadn’t thought of it that way, seeing it more as a romantic landscape. But now that you mention it, framing this as a document makes me consider how Wilcox's gaze might have overlooked Indigenous perspectives and prior claims to the land. Curator: Exactly. And how that singular gaze continues to inform our understanding of this landscape today. The untouched, majestic mountain becomes, perhaps, a contested space. Does this shift how you feel about the artwork? Editor: It certainly does. I still appreciate the skill involved, but understanding the historical context encourages a more critical perspective, one that goes beyond the immediately aesthetic to consider broader social and political implications. I am left thinking about the legacy of photography and how it shaped and continues to shape our perception of places and their history. Curator: That’s a vital takeaway. By acknowledging the complex, sometimes fraught history imbued in seemingly simple landscapes, we invite new narratives that encompass the multitude of lived experiences intertwined within them.