Mittenwald 1886

Alfred Stieglitz made this photograph, Mittenwald, using a photogravure, a printing process that renders a photograph in ink. The photograph depicts a man and a woman walking through a rural landscape in Mittenwald, Germany. Mittenwald is located in the Bavarian Alps, close to the Austrian border. It was a popular destination for artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This image suggests a cultural interest in the rural landscape that defined much art and photography of the era. Such images played an important role in shaping perceptions of German national identity. It represents a romanticized view of rural life, with the figures dwarfed by the natural landscape. To understand more, one can research the history of photography, German Romanticism, and the cultural politics of landscape imagery in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.