The Great Wave,Sète

The Great Wave, Sète

The Great Wave, Sète

The Great Wave, Sète

Artist:
Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820–1884)
Date:
1857
Medium:
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions:
33.7 x 41.4 cm (13 1/4 x 16 5/16 in.)
Classification:
Photographs
Credit Line:
Gift of John Goldsmith Phillips, 1976

The dramatic effects of sunlight, clouds, and water in Le Gray's seascapes stunned his contemporaries and immediately brought him international recognition. At a time when photographic emulsions were not equally sensitive to all colors of the spectrum, most photographers found it impossible to achieve proper exposure of both landscape and sky in a single picture. Le Gray solved this problem by printing two negatives on a single sheet of paper: one exposed for the sea, the other for the sky, and sometimes made on separate occasions or in different locations. Le Gray's marine pictures caused a sensation not only because their simultaneous depiction of sea and heavens represented a technical tour de force, but also because the resulting poetic effect was without precedent in photography.

Provenance

John Goldsmith Phillips, Palm Beach

Copyright Image
https://images.metmuseum.org