Gezicht op het Meer van Tazenat bij Charbonnières-les-Vieilles 1904

This small albumen print shows us a panoramic view of Lake Tazenat in France, created by an artist known only as Delizy. This kind of photograph was a popular way to record a scene, but also to reflect the changes taking place in French society. The country was rapidly industrializing and developing its infrastructure and panoramic photographs provided a way to record landscapes before they were lost to development. At the same time, the rise of mass tourism created a demand for images of beauty spots and natural wonders. As an object in a museum today, this photograph can be appreciated in terms of its aesthetic qualities, or as a historical record of France, during a period of rapid transformation. By consulting archives, correspondence, and other primary source materials, we can learn more about the cultural values that shaped how people understood their world. The meaning of a photograph like this is always contingent on the social and institutional context in which it was made.