French Photography within the Age of Impressionism

Drawn from the gathering of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, French Photography within the Age of Impressionism brings collectively works by Charles Nègre, Henri Le Secq, Eugène Cuvelier, Charles Marville, Louis-Émile Durandelle, Eugène Atget, and others. Rather than merely documenting Nineteenth-century France, these photographers helped form its visible and cultural id. The pictures on view present how pictures helped outline the visible expertise of Nineteenth-century France, giving lasting type to a society present process profound change. 

The many years surrounding the rise of Impressionism in France witnessed not one revolution in seeing, however many. While painters challenged educational conventions by way of new approaches to mild, colour, and material, photographers, too, have been redefining how the world may very well be pictured. Publicly introduced in Paris in 1839, pictures was itself a revolutionary know-how. Rapid improvements over the next many years enabled photographers to work extra freely and rapidly open air whereas producing pictures of extraordinary readability and element.  

French Photography within the Age of Impressionism is curated by Dr. Sarah Kennel, VMFA’s Aaron Siskind Curator of Photography and Director of the Raysor Center.