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An occasional destination of the author, the Allée des Acacias is the site of several fictional public encounters in Proust’s epic novel. This photograph of the popular pathway in the Bois de Boulogne was reproduced as a postcard by the Parisian publishing house C.L.C.
The fact that the various figures that populate the bustling scene – from the coachmen in the background to the insouciantly posed woman in the foreground at right – are impossibly all in focus indicates that the image was produced by means of photocollage. Several prints were meticulously cropped and the desired fragments adhered to a single print which was then rephotographed. The landscape photo that serves as the background was likely taken in the light of the early morning, when the heavily frequented thoroughfare would have been devoid of figures in transit that might have blurred the image. Yet the limitations of photographic technology at the time do not fully account for the rationale that motivated the laborious construction of this image. Indeed, Alfred Stieglitz’ earlier A Wet Day On The Boulevard – Paris, 1897 demonstrates that photographers had the capability to successfully capture an urban scene teeming with intractable activity. Perhaps the anonymous author of this photograph insists on composition as a tactile process of selection and rejection in an appeal to traditional notions of artifice. |
Unidentified Artist, Recreation, Parks and Playgrounds: France. Paris. Luxembourg Gardens; Bois de Boulogne; Boulevards: Parks and Playgrounds Paris, France: Bois de Boulogne. 22. Paris - Allée des Acacias C.L.C., c.1903
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Social Museum Collection, 3.2002.2470.6 |