Untitled 1857

Curator: There’s something melancholic about this photograph. A gelatin silver print, it's simply called "Untitled," made by Gustave Le Gray around 1857. I find it incredibly compelling. Editor: Yes, an odd, still beauty pervades it, despite the scene's potential chaos. I'm immediately drawn to the lone rider positioned on the right against that hazy backdrop. The dark, almost solemn figure really holds the gaze. Curator: That solemnity, I think, is partly attributable to the historical context. This was taken just after the Crimean War. Le Gray, who worked as a reportage photographer during that conflict, has imbued this landscape with echoes of that period, but more from an artist's stance than a reporter's. Editor: It's the figure of the lone horseman, I think, that captures this quiet mood of reflection so potently. His stance—upright and alert, with an indiscernible posture. It resonates with familiar visual motifs of stoicism, duty, and solitude which would be particularly pointed during and just after times of war. I want to imagine his story, and so imbue the image with significance of memory. Curator: Le Gray’s involvement with pictorialism comes into play as well. Although this predates some key movement activities, one can still see he's elevating the photographic medium beyond just documentation. By manipulating the printing process to enhance atmospheric effects and create softer tonalities, this artistic goal goes far past just wanting to record something as it is. Editor: Agreed. The scene is awash in these beautiful, soft sepia tones which only increases that dreamlike quality, don't you think? Despite the fact the mounted officer on the right looms very close, the scene somehow feels much more about that pale horizon which bleeds right into the sky, offering a more romantic, and thus idealized, rendering of what might really be there on the ground. Curator: It is fascinating how Le Gray seems to balance this fine line between realistic depiction and artistic impression. His position in the transition from realism to pictorialism reveals photography at a pivotal moment in time and gives the work tremendous weight. Editor: It does that very well. Thinking about these overlapping artistic motivations really invites a rich and diverse interpretive response from viewers as we consider this particular example from photography’s early years. Curator: A worthy use of our time to see these historical developments in the medium, thank you.