Fissure Vent at Steamboat Springs, Nevada

Timothy H. O'Sullivan

1867 · Albumen silver print from glass negative · Photographs

For some of the most mesmerizing photographs made for ostensibly documentary purposes, we have only clues to elucidate the original intention. This picture has been published as both "Steam Rising from a Fissure near Virginia City, Nevada" and "Ruby Valley, Nevada;" Clarence King titled it as cited above. None of the titles clarifies the picture's mystery. Surely the shadowy figure is on the edge of an abyss, but whether he is to be swallowed up by it or has just risen from it is unclear. Maybe the point is his very ambiguity in the infernal, Dantean space. Or perhaps he is the anchor in a depiction of an amorphous geological event--the familiar entity by which all things are measured, including the density of vapor and the passage of time.

Artist

Timothy H. O'Sullivan

Date

1867

Medium

Albumen silver print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Marlene Nathan Meyerson Family Foundation Gift, 2005