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| Gustave Le Gray Fontainebleau - Chemin sablonneux montant ca. 1856 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Francis Frith Cedars of Lebanon ca. 1857 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Désiré Charnay Baobab à Mohéli 1863 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Constant Alexandre Famin Man in Forest Landscape ca. 1870 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
September Twilight
I gathered you together,
I can dispense with you –
I'm tired of you, chaos
of the living world –
I can only extend myself
for so long to a living thing.
I summoned you into existence
by opening my mouth, by lifting
my little finger, shimmering
blues of the wild
aster, blossom
of the lily, immense,
gold-veined –
you come and go; eventually
I forget your names.
You come and go, every one of you
flawed in some way,
in some way compromised: you are worth
one life, no more than that.
I gathered you together;
I can erase you
as though you were a draft to be thrown away,
an exercise
because I've finished you, vision
of deepest mourning.
– Louise Glück, from The Wild Iris (Ecco Press, 1992)
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| Thomas Davies Wood Scene - Norton, Cheshire 1856 albumen silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Horatio Ross Tree ca. 1858 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Eugène Chauvigné Roses ca. 1875 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Thomas George Mackinlay Study for a Picture 1856 albumen silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| William Notman Still Life with Books ca. 1870-90 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Parable of the Dove
A dove lived in a village.
When it opened its mouth
sweetness came out, sound
like a silver light around
the cherry bough. But
the dove wasn't satisfied.
It saw the villagers
gathered to listen under
the blossoming tree.
It didn't think: I
am higher than they are.
It wanted to walk among them,
to experience the violence of human feeling,
in part for its song's sake.
So it became human.
It found passion, it found violence,
first conflated, then
as separate emotions
and these were not
contained by music. Thus
its song changed,
the sweet notes of its longing to be human
soured and flattened. Then
the world drew back; the mutant
fell from love
as from the cherry branch,
it fell stained with the bloody
fruit of the tree.
So it is true after all, not merely
a rule of art:
change your form and you change your nature.
And time does this to us.
– Louise Glück, from Meadowlands (HarperCollins, 1996)
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| Hippolyte Bayard Still Life with Statuary ca. 1850-55 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Robert Macpherson The Hermaphrodite ca. 1861 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Stephen Thompson Satyr - British Museum ca. 1869-72 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Edmond Bénard Sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet in his Studio ca. 1880-90 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Edmond Bénard Artist François Flameng in his Studio ca. 1880-90 albumen silver print from glass negative Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |