拍品专文
A fine print of Le Gray's masterpiece, a photograph which was the subject of great international acclaim and speculation when it was first exhibited in London at the Photographic Society's annual exhibition in December 1856, and in Paris at the second exhibition of the Société Française de photographie in the following year.
Since the invention of the medium, photographers had bemoaned the fact that it was impossible to achieve successful views including sky detail. When Le Gray, already one of the most respected and influential photographers in Europe, exhibited this seascape, his contemporaries debated how he had succeeded and whether he had, as claimed, used only one negative. It is a debate which has continued since, and although it has now been proven that Le Gray did use multiple negatives for other seascapes, scholars remain divided over the whether this was the case with the photograph known as 'The Brig'.
Eugenia Janis, in her monograph on Le Gray, writes "The seascapes of Gustave Le Gray remain among his most beloved photographs. Large in scale, richly toned in russet-gold hues, they embrace some of the most spectacular lighting effects in the early history of photography......Le Gray was undaunted by the mercurial, ferocious sea. Exactly how he seized its fugitive effects remains his darkroom secret."
Since the invention of the medium, photographers had bemoaned the fact that it was impossible to achieve successful views including sky detail. When Le Gray, already one of the most respected and influential photographers in Europe, exhibited this seascape, his contemporaries debated how he had succeeded and whether he had, as claimed, used only one negative. It is a debate which has continued since, and although it has now been proven that Le Gray did use multiple negatives for other seascapes, scholars remain divided over the whether this was the case with the photograph known as 'The Brig'.
Eugenia Janis, in her monograph on Le Gray, writes "The seascapes of Gustave Le Gray remain among his most beloved photographs. Large in scale, richly toned in russet-gold hues, they embrace some of the most spectacular lighting effects in the early history of photography......Le Gray was undaunted by the mercurial, ferocious sea. Exactly how he seized its fugitive effects remains his darkroom secret."