Brug in de Liechtensteinklamm 1881 - 1892

Curator: Looking at this stereo photograph titled "Bridge in the Liechtenstein Gorge" by Würthle & Spinnhirn, dating from between 1881 and 1892, I'm immediately struck by its sheer monumentality. Editor: It's visually arresting, no doubt. But also kind of eerie, right? The sepia tones emphasize the crushing weight of those rock formations, dwarfing that delicate-looking bridge. The sublime in visual form, promising drama and danger. Curator: It does evoke the sublime! The image utilizes a very popular nineteenth-century technique for prints of that era: Stereo photography offered viewers a heightened, almost immersive experience. They are in effect looking *into* the scene. I'm thinking of other artistic genres like Romanticism, where landscape painting invited similar reflection, awe, and self awareness. Editor: True. It reflects a broader culture fixated on both conquering and celebrating nature. However, that Romantic impulse often ignored the messy realities of how these spaces were accessed, commodified, and inevitably changed. It suggests to me a more radical project. Not of capturing untouched landscapes, but thinking through them in relation to labor, capital, and the tourist gaze. Who is afforded the luxury to marvel at such landscapes, and who works to make it possible? The composition obscures these questions while, I believe, unintentionally inviting them. Curator: That is a fantastic way to look at it! The composition emphasizes the geological grandeur of the gorge itself. I can almost feel the cold, damp air rising up. Though, maybe what makes the photograph is really that bridge — like a fragile symbol of humanity's venture into nature's most elemental states. Editor: Or the colonial drive to dominate new environments? Think of the technologies needed to build and maintain it. The engineering prowess contrasted with the relatively untouched landscape... there's an inherent tension, almost a kind of performative hubris, there, too. Curator: Absolutely. This tension between nature and civilization is one of its more captivating paradoxes. Seeing it that way deepens its value far beyond pure scenic beauty. Editor: I concur; thinking about the image's legacy also gives me hope: we have come far, especially now with digital archives making works such as these even more accessible.