![[The Beech Tree]](/api/proxy-image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.getty.edu%2Fiiif%2Fimage%2F96e0a746-edfc-42bd-95e7-dde314f0f19d%2Ffull%2F808%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg)
Getty Museum
[The Beech Tree]
Creator
Gustave Le GrayFrench Photographer · 1820–1884
All works by this person →Though he was trained as a painter, Gustave Le Gray made his mark in the emerging medium of photography. An experimenter and technical innovator, Le Gray pioneered the use of the paper negative in France and developed a waxed-paper negative that produced sharper-focus prints. In 1851 he began to use collodion on glass negatives, which further increased the clarity of his images. He became one of t
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1855–1857
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 735e7361-11f9-4b44-a2cc-abb333d2a0e6
From the Getty Museum record
A beech tree in the Forest of Fontainebleau rears back as if to begin a bow to the photographer who would so majestically immortalize it. Of the many studies Gustave Le Gray made in Fontainebleau, a popular destination for artists and vacationing Parisians in the mid-nineteenth century, this photograph is the nearest to a portrait. With its gnarly roots exposed, the tree assumes center stage, a majestic and commanding force of nature whose trunk glows in the direct sunlight as if lit from within. Its leaves shimmer in the sun's glow, making the dense foliage appear weightless.
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