Review:
"The astonishing detail of the photos in Carleton Watkins: The Stanford Albums is explained by the mammoth glass plates that Watkins used to capture his pioneering views of natural wonders in California and the Pacific Northwest-and man's transformation of them by mining and industry. Even the fine full-page reproductions in this large landscape-format volume are only a third of the size of Watkins's immense albumen prints. The originals have so many subtle colors (mostly in the shadows) that four-color printing was chosen, with an emphasis on a full range of blacks, to maintain those tones as well as possible. That approach infuses the images, printed on matte-coated stock, with a poetic dimension more in keeping with the photographer's intentions, which might not be conveyed as successfully by fine-grained reproductions on glossy paper. The three albums are devoted, respectively, to photographs of the Pacific coast, including San Francisco, the Columbia River and Oregon, and the Yosemite Valley-photos that helped persuade Abraham Lincoln and Congress to pass the Yosemite Valley Grant Act of 1864, laying the groundwork for the national park system."-Christopher Lyon, Bookforum "Watkins' most famous photographs-those of Yosemite-are beautiful but now sedating in their familiarity. They capture what he and other nineteenth-century photographers and painters repeatedly inscribed as the American sublime. This is the nature that dwarfs and obliterates us."-Richard White, author of Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America
About the Author:
The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University offers a collection of more than 36,000 objects spanning 5,000 years, from Africa to the Americas to Asia, from classical to contemporary. With 24 galleries and more than 20 special exhibitions each year, the Cantor attracts audiences of all ages and backgrounds and welcomes nearly 200,000 visitors annually.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.