Gebouwen te La Raillère 1862 - 1876

Jean Andrieu took this stereograph, ‘Gebouwen te La Raillère’ or ‘Buildings in La Raillère’ sometime between 1850 and 1870. It's made by adhering a photographic print to card stock. This photograph is really all about materiality, of both the natural and the built environments. On the one hand, we see a building - perhaps a tollbooth - constructed from locally sourced stone. On the other, we see the dramatic landscape, the mountains looming in the distance. Look at the textures in the image, from the rough-hewn rocks in the foreground to the carefully stacked masonry of the building. Photography, of course, has its own inherent materiality. The way the chemicals react with light, the quality of the paper on which the image is printed – all these factors contribute to the work’s appearance. Moreover, the stereograph was a popular form of entertainment at this time, made possible by industrial advances in printing and photography. This photograph brings together both human craft and mass production, challenging our conventional understanding of art.