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#8 min Modry Duch, Zdena Kolečková
1. 1. 2024
Photography and the tourist set out almost simultaneously on a journey through history on the threshold of modernity. They walk together and transform each other through mutual interactions. I follow these changes from the perspective of the tourist gaze, asking myself where the tourist’s gaze is directed from and what it is directed at. I search for answers in the story of a single daguerreotype of the Niagara Falls, captured in 1840 by Hugh Lee Pattinson.
In the late 18th century, many inventors, scientists, artists, and travelers burned with a desire to photograph (Batchen 1997), which consisted in an attempt to capture images observed in the camera obscura or Claude glass and thus fix the fleeting visual perceptions they experienced on their journeys. The desire to photograph was born on journeys that took the character of individual expeditions in which visual experience was determined by a Romantic gaze framed by the aesthetic of the picturesque (Crawshaw and Urry 1997). It is here that a particular perspective of the world as a compendium of images was born; a walk through the landscape became another form of gallery visit, with the solitary “spectator” contemplatively gazing into their own soul when looking at the scenic landscape.
At first, the invention of photography only transformed this form of experience to the extent that the hunters of the picturesque would set out on their expeditions armed with a photo camera rather than a Claude glass and a sketchpad. Although the market with illustrated topographical and travel books featuring depictions of landmarks and landscapes was extensive and had been so long before 1839, photography managed to accelerate it and allowed for these images of scenic tableaus to spread among far broader layers of the population. Although traveling as a leisure activity began developing in the mid-19th century, along with photography (Lash and Urry 1994: 261), the first tourists (a small group in today’s perspective) generally did not take photographs on their excursions – at most, they had themselves photographed. Throughout most of the 19th century, the practice of photography involved not only free time and disposable income, but also a considerable amount of dexterity, skill, and knowledge, so most of the public travelled virtually, sat in their armchairs, looking through images in travel books and illustrated magazines or photographs and their reproductions.
A significant example of this form of imaginary tourism is a collection, in book form, of graphic reproductions made after daguerreotypes, published between 1840 and 1844 by the Parisian optician and daguerreotypist Noël Lerebours (1840–1844) under the characteristic title Excursions Daguerriennes: vues et monuments les plus remarquables du globe (Daguerrean Excursions: The Most Remarkable Views and Monuments of the World). Lerebours catered to a public desirous of picturesque views and travel information whilst also admiring the precision and truthfulness of the new medium of photography in the form of reproductions rendered with absolute accuracy and accompanied by detailed descriptions. On the pages of Excursions, the magic of photography, which gives nature the possibility of accurately capturing itself, thus intersected with the Romantic desire to experience nature in its authentic form.
The long exposure needed to make daguerreotypes, however, did not allow the photographers to capture anything in motion, and daguerreotypes are generally devoid of people. Lerebours (1840–1841) thus alerts his readers to the fact that during the creation of the engraving, these depictions were animated by the addition of people and animals. These figures are captured at moments when they are engaged in their everyday activities: ladies entering the Chartres Cathedral, riders on horseback traversing the courtyard of the Chateau de Fontainebleau, raftsmen sailing under the bridges on a view of Grenoble, dogs fighting in front of the Lyon town hall, children skipping rope and rolling hoops in the Tuileries Garden. However, they never pay any attention to the principal subject of the image – they do not admire the historical landmarks; they do not gaze at the picturesque landscapes of which they form an unwitting part.
Breaking tone with this style is one depiction, Niagara. Chute du fer a cheval (Niagara. Horseshoe Falls) (Ill. 1). The engraver, Frédéric Salathé, complemented this view engraved after Pattinson’s daguerreotype with a single solitary figure. With its back to the camera, it gazes at the waterfall. This is an entirely unique depiction of the observer and the direction of their gaze in Lerebours’ collection, corresponding most closely to the period notion of the Romantic traveller or pilgrim as we know it from the work of Caspar David Friedrich, a leading exponent of German Romanticism. In relation to the nascent phenomenon of mass tourism, however, there is, in fact, more at stake here. Joan Schwartz noted that the depictions in Excursions “fired the imagination of the armchair traveller and directed the itineraries of real travellers” (Schwartz 1996: 23). But depictions of the Niagara Falls inspired not only what the tourist should look at, but also what perspective they should take. As Geoffrey Batchen notes (2018: 184 – note 111), the viewer is invited to identify with the figure depicted; to stand in its place and give themselves over to this view of the Niagara Falls. We are thus faced with the first image of the traveler made after a daguerreotype; the future tourist, and this at the paramount moment of the traveling experience, facing the destination of the journey. His gaze is still solitary and Romantic.
- BBC. “Cambrian chemist’s 1840 Niagara photo on display.” [online] BBC News Service, 18 November 2010. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-11783613.
Modry Duch
Zdena Kolečková
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