[Winter Trees, Reflected in a Pond]

William Henry Fox Talbot

1841–42 · Salted paper print from paper negative · Photographs

For some pictures Talbot turned his camera toward subjects traditionally thought suitable for artistic representation, scenes of picturesque beauty or sites of historic interest. For others he arranged objects or people in aesthetic tableaux. For still others, such as this one, Talbot must surely have viewed the world through his camera and found on its ground glass an abstract composition that he would not have envisaged as a picture without the framing and spatial flattening characteristic of photographic observation.

Artist

William Henry Fox Talbot

Date

1841–42

Medium

Salted paper print from paper negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005