Dialogues: 1860s-1920s-1940s

Eugène Cuvelier :: Près de la Caverne, Terrain Brûlé, early 1860s. Salted paper print from paper negative. | src The Met
Eugène Cuvelier :: Près de la Caverne, Terrain Brûlé, early 1860s. Salted paper print from paper negative. | src The Met

“An atypical work for the naturalistically inclined Cuvelier, this highly Romantic image of two people sitting below the skeletons of burned pine trees and looking into the featureless distance like the contemplative figures in the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, was no doubt a response to the startling sight of the charred landscape.” | quoted from The Met

Adolf Rossi :: On a frozen lake, 1946. Vintage gelatin silver print | Sign. Adolf Rossi a Easter Cape International Salon of Photography. 6th C. P. A. International Salon 1965, Hong Kong | src Prague Auctions
Adolf Rossi :: On a frozen lake, 1946. Vintage gelatin silver print | Sign. Adolf Rossi a Easter Cape International Salon of Photography. 6th C. P. A. International Salon 1965, Hong Kong | src Prague Auctions

“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)

“Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)

Life is merely a fracas on an unmapped terrain, and the universe a geometry stricken with epilepsy. ― Emil Cioran, A Short History of Decay (1949)

‘Cloudland’, Southport, 1875-76

‘Cloudland’, Southport. 1875–76. Albumen prints, trimmed to a circular format, mounted on two album leaves, each mount titled and dated ‘Nov. 29. 1875 – Southport – Jan. 27. 1876’ in ink with a quotation:
‘Things that the angels work out for us daily & yet vary eternally’ [John Ruskin]
src The Photographic Process

Nazimova interview, 1926

Nazimova interviewed by Adela Rogers St. Johns for Photoplay magazine, October 1926. | src internet archive

“I did ‘Salome’ as a purgative”, declares Nazimova. “The trash I had played made me sick with myself. I wanted something so different, so fanciful, so artistic, that it would take the taste out of my mouth”. Costume designs for Salome were Natacha Rambova’s (including the iconic wig).

(anthropomorphic) Figure, 1928

Cadavre Exquis [André Breton, Max Morise, Jeannette Ducrocq Tanguy, Pierre Naville, Benjamin Péret, Yves Tanguy, Jacques Prévert] :: Figure, 1928. Collaborative collage made stacking found printed images of mundane objects (*) in an anthropomorphic figure. | src MoMA
(*) The presence of the umbrella recalls a phrase the Surrealists adopted from the poet Comte de Lautréamont (born Isidore Ducasse) as an ideal description of the principle of juxtaposition: “As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table.” [quoted from source]

Women and Roses, 1900s-1910s

Emma Barton (Mrs. G.A. Barton) :: The Gardener’s Daughter, before or on 1911. (DETAIL)

Far up the porch there grew an Eastern rose,
Gown’d in pure white, that fitted to the shape,
Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood,
A single steam of all her soft brown hair
Poured on one side. (Tennyson)

Emma Barton (Mrs. G.A. Barton) :: The Gardener’s Daughter. Published in The Amateur Photographer & Photographic News, vol. LIV, 1398, p. 66 (1911). From The Royal Photographic Society’s Annual Exhibition. | src Musée Nicéphore Niépce
Emma Barton (née Rayson) :: The Soul of the Rose, ca. 1905. Carbon print. The Royal Photographic Society at Science & Media Museum, now V&A

Around Us Lie These Mysteries

John Dugdale :: Around Us Lie these Mysteries, ca. 1998. Cyanotype. | src John Dugdale Studio

Song of the Open Road (1856)

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women ─ I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

Walt Whitman

«People never feel the devil»

R. Strüdel :: Unknown title. Published in Jugend magazine, 1914, issue nº 8. | src Heidelberg University Library
R. Strüdel :: Unknown title. Published in Jugend magazine, 1914, issue nº 8. | src Heidelberg University Library
R. Strüdel :: Unknown title. Published in Jugend magazine, 1914, issue nº 8. | src Heidelberg University Library
Caption reads: Den Teufel Spürt das Völkchen nie,
Und wenn er sie beim Kragen Hätte!
R. Strüdel :: Unknown title. Published in Jugend magazine, 1914, issue nº 8. | src Heidelberg University Library
«People never feel the devil / even if he caught them by the collar!»
R. Strüdel :: Unknown title. Published in Jugend magazine, 1914, issue nº 8. | src Heidelberg University Library