postcard photo from the book by Harvey Tulcensky
Toronto. My good friend, George Dunbar, recently dropped me a line mentioning a NY Times article about at a Museum in Belgium. The article, titled, “Triumph of the Image” is an archived writing by Luc Sante.
George writes, ” A wonderful history of ‘images’ is presented here in a New York Times’ archived article. That final statement (my underline) describes the joy and delight experienced by us all, thanks to photography.”
This is the excerpt from George: “The invention of photography furthered the impact of these great repositories. If you couldn’t stroll the Louvre’s marble corridors, at least you could look at pictures of its collection. Large numbers of people first became acquainted with the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo when photographs of these works (dim sepia views, especially in the case of the paintings) began to be made and distributed in the 1850’s.
“The considerable power of these pictures is beautifully evoked in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 movie, “Les Carabiniers.” In one scene, a couple of near troglodytes sent off to war come back with plunder in the form of a suitcase full of postcards. For 10 minutes — an eternity on screen — the characters lovingly pull their newly discovered cards out of the case one by one: monuments, landscapes, animals, street scenes, fine-art reproductions. They possess the world. Godard’s scene, for all its ironies, comes close to the excitement and amazement that must have seized people when they first realized that everything on earth could be conveyed, and owned, in the form of pictures.”
I illustrated this post with a postcard photo from a book by Harvey Tulcensky of the USA. Two other postcards courtesy of Tulcensky are included in the NYT article.
Photo collectors take note! There will be many fine old photos offered at our coming spring fair this May. We have hosted the fair for almost a half century now at various venues in Toronto and the GTA. Come on down (see above link for details) and check out the goodies to add to your collection or user gear.
