Gezicht op Torre del Greco 1861 - 1878

Editor: We’re looking at “Gezicht op Torre del Greco,” a gelatin-silver print stereograph by Ernest Eléonor Pierre Lamy, created sometime between 1861 and 1878. It gives me a really strong sense of place, but also of something… lost, maybe? It feels so distant and a little ghostly. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Distant, ghostly... I love that! For me, it’s a quiet contemplation of time, both captured and fleeting. The very process of stereography, creating a three-dimensional image, feels like an attempt to freeze a moment, to make it eternally present. But of course, the world in the photo has moved on, the people are gone, and the buildings might be different now. It’s like holding a memory in your hand and knowing it’s just a fragment of what once was. Does that make sense? What grabs you about it compositionally? Editor: That does! I hadn't thought of it like holding a memory. I think my eye is drawn to the textures—the craggy rocks in the foreground, then the smooth water, and finally the blurry town in the distance. It’s like a journey. Curator: Precisely! It's all about the layering, a visual narrative leading you from the tangible here and now to the more elusive world of the town. It reminds me a little of looking out from a dream; those forefront textures holding a link to some reality before drifting back off to sleep. Given that, could we say this a sort of ‘art of dreaming’? What would the world be missing if not for those dreamy moments? Editor: Hmm, "art of dreaming," that’s beautifully put. I guess without it, we'd lose our ability to connect the present with the past. Thanks, I feel like I understand it so much better now. Curator: My pleasure. Sometimes all it takes is letting a little daydream creep in.