Cleveland Museum of Art

Courtyard with Painters

Date

late 1860s

Medium

albumen print from wet collodion negative

Culture

France(?), 19th century

Department

Photography

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This photographer inventively expanded the medium to create a rare example of both early genre (everyday life) photography and documentation of artists at work. The collodion negative captured a wealth of detail. The French village courtyard bustles with activity-the artist in the foreground hugs a squirming child and chats with his wife; a group of peasant women in the background heave huge bundles of laundry about in carts and baskets; and an innkeeper poses proudly for the camera outside his ivy-covered establishment. The diagonals of the sloping roofs and the textures of tiles, wood, and stone enhance the composition's visual interest. A luminous glow, absorbed by open canvas umbrellas, pervades the center of the scene.

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