Montmajour 1861 - 1864

Edouard Baldus’s “Montmajour” (1861-1864) is a striking example of his architectural photography. Captured in a stark and monumental style, the image depicts the ruins of a Romanesque abbey in the south of France. Baldus, a pioneer of the medium, employed the calotype process, creating a photograph with a soft, textured quality that perfectly captures the weathered stonework and the ethereal atmosphere of the site. The photograph’s composition, with its emphasis on the crumbling structure and the lone path leading towards it, evokes a sense of history and timelessness. The photograph is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.