Tropical Scenery, View Near Chipigana 1871

John Moran captured this albumen silver print, "Tropical Scenery, View Near Chipigana," sometime in the 19th century. At first glance, the eye struggles to find a focal point amidst the dense thicket of foliage, a visual field without a clear foreground or background. The composition teeters on the edge of chaos, a semiotic challenge where the signs of nature—leaves, branches, trunks—converge into near abstraction. Moran seems less interested in portraying the exotic allure of the tropics and more attuned to the intrinsic complexity of organic form. Consider how the interplay of light and shadow, modulated through the chemical process of the albumen print, flattens and textures the scene. The photograph destabilizes the traditional landscape's sense of depth, instead favoring a surface-oriented reading. In this way, Moran anticipates the modernist flattening of pictorial space, turning the tropical landscape into a study of form and texture.