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Early Views, 1854 Grandson of a wealthy industrialist, Roger Fenton was born in 1819 north of Manchester in Lancashire, England. In the early 1840s, he put aside his law studies to become an artist, studying painting in both Paris and London. In 1851, he took up photography and returned briefly to Paris to learn from the leading French photographer, Gustave Le Gray. Trained as a painter and committed to photography as an art, Le Gray had a lasting impact on Fenton's career.
Like Le Gray, Fenton sought to record "the living triumphs or the decaying monuments of man's genius and pride" in his photographs of architecture. But his early photographs also depict what he regarded as more English subjects, such as romantic landscapes that capitalized on the popularity of picturesque travel. His compositions often incorporate figures—surrogates for viewers—who walk amid the architectural ruins or gaze into the depths of sublime vistas. |
