#deltiologies

LIZ ORTON

Deltiologies

The work is collaged from scans of early twentieth century photochroms. I am interested in the conventions that constitute landscape photography, both then and now. These conventions are so natural or normal as to be invisible: the fixed/static viewpoint; a distant perspective on an expanding view; the proportioned arrangement of foreground, middle ground and background; the picturesque exclusion of agriculture and industry; ‘nature’ as pristine and untouched.  These visual practices helped popularize an idealized version of Alpine landscapes to people all over Europe and America at the turn of the century.