Boslandschap in Frankrijk 1860 - 1870

Eugène Cuvelier made this landscape in France using photography some time in the mid-nineteenth century. It's easy to see this image as a straightforward record of nature, but photography in this period was far from simple. The new medium occupied a contested place among the established fine arts like painting and sculpture. Photography was seen by many as a purely mechanical procedure lacking artistic merit, and this raises the question, what kind of cultural work could photography perform? Cuvelier was part of a group of artists who sought to elevate photography by demonstrating its artistic potential. They borrowed subject matter and compositional techniques from painting, which was an effort to gain acceptance within established art institutions. To understand the image fully, we can consult not only art history but also the history of science and technology, and cultural studies of leisure and recreation. In the end, we can see that the meaning of art is deeply embedded in its time.