['The roadway before the digging begun', 'The roadway now'] before 1912

Here’s a diptych of photographs from June 1874, entitled "The roadway before the digging begun" and "The roadway now", by Henry W. Taunt. You know, looking at these images, I can almost feel the sun on my face and the grit under my fingernails. I imagine Taunt, lugging his camera equipment to North Hiskey, capturing the landscape, before and after. There's a real sense of labor and transformation here. In the first image, the road is rough, uneven, a track worn by time and use. Then, in the second photograph, the road is transformed by the hands of Ruskin's pupils and followers: graded, smooth, purposeful. But what strikes me most is the act of seeing itself. Taunt is not just documenting; he's participating in a conversation about progress, labour, and the relationship between humans and the landscape. Each image is a gesture, a statement about our ability to shape the world around us. You can tell, in the end, they were inspired by a sense of idealism, which also made the work unsustainable! It's the kind of exchange that artists have been having for centuries, isn't it? A back-and-forth, a call and response, each generation building upon the ideas and efforts of those who came before.