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Seascape with Cloud Study
le gray, gustave, born 1820 - died 1884 - Enlarge image
Seascape with Cloud Study; Vue de mer, Ciel Nuageux
- Object:
Photograph
- Place of origin:
France (made)
- Date:
1856-57 (photographed)
- Artist/Maker:
le gray, gustave, born 1820 - died 1884 (photographers)
- Materials and Techniques:
Albumen silver photograph
- Credit Line:
Transferred from the British Museum
- Museum number:
E.1339-2000
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level H, case PX, shelf 2, box 5
Gustave Le Gray’s seascapes are one of the greatest achievements in the art of photography. Their exquisite tonal quality, impressive scale and innovative exposure and printing methods set high technical standards, while also elevating the evocative and poetic capacity of the new medium.
Le Gray was born in 1820 near Paris and trained there as a painter. Around 1847 he took up photography. His seascapes were, and are still, his greatest public, commercial and aesthetic success. He took them on the French coast at Normandy in the summer of 1856 and a second set from the Mediterranean coast in spring 1857, though it is not known at which location this image was made.
Despite its title, the image shows almost no sea and is more of a cloud study, concentrating upon the massive, billowing formations. In his writing, Le Gray set out a ‘theory of sacrifices’. This suggested that in a work of art detail could be sacrificed in the interests of the overall impression of light and shade. Here he illustrates that theory using the most ethereal of subject matters.
