Vista vision

Author: Alexxa Gotthardt

In the advent of photography, the United States was continuing to explore the west. A collection of extraordinary photographs, the subject of the spring semester's exhibition in the Museum of Art, is a testament to that age of artistic and geographic discovery.

There was a time when the photographer's primary function was as a tool of governmental surveying, tourism expansion and geological study. In the mid-19th century, on the heels of the medium's creation, photography was purely practical. Photographers themselves were rare, since the profession demanded a certain personality - perfectionist meets adventurer. Unwieldy equipment, untamed locations and a photographic process that was anything but foolproof made for a delicate yet exciting experience. Despite the boss' directives and the difficulty in developing many of the landscape, photographers of the 19th century have gone down in history as artistes extraordinaires.

"Eloquent Vistas: The Art of 19th Century American Landscape Photography from the George Eastman House Collection," on display at the Middlebury College Museum of Art (MCMA) through April 20, exhibits 78 photographs, all in spectacular condition, taken for the institution, but with an individual eye for beauty. The exhibition is on loan from the George Eastman House, a museum of international photography and film, which holds more than 3,500 prints and 6,500 stereographs of 19th century landscape images.

The exhibition features works by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Eadweard Muybridge, William Henry Jackson, John Moran, Carlton E. Watkins, William H. Rau, William Bell, Platt D. Babbit, among others - all photographers who worked for the government, railroad companies or the tourist trade. Their photographs, however, prove anything but canned or conventional, and instead confirm a honed aesthetic and a sense of unchecked awe at the American landscape. Whether a charming stereograph, a mammoth albumen print or a jewel-like daguerreotype (all photographic processes described in the text panels that accompany the show), each photograph, exceptionally detailed, depicts a country full of breathtaking vistas, rich natural resources and a few (diminutive) people admiring it all. Together, all 78 photographs map a country ready for change as grand as their forests and as big as their mountains.

Taken from the 1850s through the 1890s, the landscape photographs themselves depict the east, the west, and places in between. Some sites are familiar - Yosemite, Yellowstone, Mt. Hood, Harpers Ferry and the Hudson River Railroad - while others seem worlds away, serene fairylands and wild giants' lairs of the imagination. The exhibition's text panels remind us, however, that all of these photographic glimpses are part and parcel of a very real American history. No matter the location, these images, produced during and just after the Civil War, embody both the tension and excitement of the American people.

The layout of the exhibition, designed by MCMA Museum Designer Ken Pohlman, also serves as a reminder of the period. The tope, wainscoted walls and central sitting area, complete with Chinese rug, four elegant chairs and two orchids give the effect of a 19th century parlor, a tranquil location for musing over the striking, multi-layered images.

Eloquent Vistas is all at once a stroll through history, landscape and the very nature of photography itself. While these photographs may be displayed on art museum walls, Eloquent Vistas aims at an audience beyond artists and art-historians. According to in-house curator of the exhibition and Chief Curator of MCMA Emmie Donadio, "The photographs in this exhibition will appeal to a wide audience and should engage the interest of people involved in a broad range of the disciplines represented in the Middlebury curriculum. There is something here for everyone - artists, historians, art historians, geologists, geographers, scientists - in short, anyone interested in the transformation of the American environment. And the quality of these particular prints is extraordinary."

Further reinforcing the multi-disciplinary nature of Eloquent Vistas, MCMA has organized a busy schedule of programming to complement the exhibition. To kick off the series, a lecture entitled "Truth and its Consequences: Photography's Burden of Fact" was given on Tuesday by Charles A. Dana Professor of History of Art & Architecture Kirsten Hoving. Hoving discussed the issues in accepting the photograph as truth, even in a time when technology was years away from digital toying and touching-up. Using photographic examples from the exhibition, she shed light on the difficulties in representation 19th century photographers' faced. While they sought to represent the truth, unpredictable photographic processes paired with unfamiliarity with the land and uncertainty of the future made for photographs that were not entirely stuff of reality.

Other upcoming lectures include "The Mountain of the Holy Cross" given by Professor of Humanities John McWilliams on March 13, "Rephotographing 19th-Century Government Surveys in the Western U.S.: Documenting Over 130 Years of Environmental Change," given by Assistant Professor of Geology Jeffrey Munroe on April 3 and "Print the Legend: Photography, the West, and the American Imagination" given by Professor of American Studies and History at Amherst College Martha A. Sandweiss on April 10. Also, several musical groups, comprised of Middlebury students, will play in the exhibition space. The first, a chamber music trio, will perform on Feb. 14 from 1-2 p.m.