Railroad Incline 1907

This anonymous cyanotype, Railroad Incline, is fascinating because of its monochromatic rendering. The stark blue reminds me of a blueprint, a technical drawing almost, yet it captures something wild and untamed. Look at how the tones shift, how the blues deepen into almost black in the shadowed recesses of the rock face and the tunnels. It's like the artist was painting with light, using the sun to coax out the textures and forms. The paper itself, with its slight imperfections, feels like a living thing, absorbing and reflecting the world around it. My eye is drawn to the winding rails in the foreground, these lines cutting through the frame and leading you into the unknown heart of the mountain. This image makes me think of Bernd and Hilla Becher, those German photographers who documented industrial structures with such cool detachment. But here, there’s something more, a kind of romanticism, a feeling of being lost in the immensity of nature, even as we’re reminded of human intervention. It's a testament to the strange beauty that can be found in the most unexpected places.