Gezicht op een spoorweg door de bergen van Clear Creek County before 1874

Curator: Ah, look at this remarkable albumen print from before 1874, titled “Gezicht op een spoorweg door de bergen van Clear Creek County," credited to J. Collier. It captures a rugged mountain scene in breathtaking detail. Editor: My goodness, there’s an almost sepia melancholia about this scene. It is very evocative, very Romantic in its own way, with the raw power of nature juxtaposed against what I assume is a new railroad snaking through the gorge. There is that sense of nature as sublime, like a force greater than humanity. Curator: Absolutely. Collier's composition skillfully frames the winding Clear Creek, with the railway line, tracing along it at the base of the frame. One can easily appreciate the effort it would have taken for humans to carve this path for locomotives of the time. Editor: What do you think of how the railroad is represented? Because while I get that it might be *about* that, to me it feels very understated in the composition. Like this is all about power…natural power, but human ingenuity kind of sits meekly down at the bottom of the frame. Curator: I agree. While we are drawn to look at this single achievement of the railroad tracks on which new society is built, the landscape is the definite focus. This work can perhaps serve to help us discuss humans place in a much larger world. As technology advances what elements are lost from it? Editor: In this photograph, humanity isn’t really *conquering* nature but nestling inside it—an acknowledgement of something bigger than ourselves. It serves as a powerful reminder. You know I wonder how someone looking at it now versus at the time of making, feel or felt? Curator: I wonder the same thing, particularly with how climate issues factor into our present consciousness of the natural world. Looking at it with these issues present in one’s mind provides another interpretation of what power and dominance, that relationship that humans have with nature. I find it quite powerful, still. Editor: So powerful indeed... I came in seeing wistful loss, and am leaving pondering our fraught relationship with the Earth, now.