Cloister of Saint-Trophîme, Arles
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.At the Romanesque church of Saint-Trophime in Arles, Baldus used his cut-and-paste technique to construct a view of an ornately carved, barrel-vaulted cloister. Baldus made about a dozen exposures of the cloister, each focused and properly exposed for its portion of the scene. He then cut and joined the negatives along the contours of columns and cornices, yielding a print with visible seams that he retouched with ink. He also used brush and ink to retouch the negatives themselves, clarifying details and painting in sections of stonework. The result is a paradoxical document, at once meticulously faithful to its subject and thoroughly fabricated.
Artwork Details
- Title: Cloister of Saint-Trophîme, Arles
- Artist: Edouard Baldus (French (born Prussia), 1813–1889)
- Date: 1851
- Medium: Salted paper print from paper negatives with applied media
- Dimensions: Image: 44.8 x 50.2 cm (17 5/8 x 19 3/4 in.)
Frame: 63.5 x 83.8 cm (25 x 33 in.) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (France), Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine (Distr. RMN), Charenton-le-Pont, France
- Curatorial Department: Photographs