TRANSALPINE PHOTOGRAPHY.
I hadbeen out of sorts all the spring; my business engagements had kept me longer than usual in town, and prevented my getting a little relaxation. It was not until the end of August I was able to put into execution a long-contemplated visit to some relatives in Italy, and try what change of air and a holiday would do for me.
So away we started—a party of four, my wife and two ladies under my charge—and armed with Cook’s tickets we made our wayviaNewhaven to Paris, which we reached late at night. Next day, as our train for Italy did not leave till the evening, we wandered about Paris, visiting the sad scenes of Communistic destruction. Plenty of photographs in every shop illustrative of the wretched devastation which was visible on all sides. In a place like Paris there was of course all qualities, shapes, and sizes; and, in addition tosouvenirsof the ruined public buildings, there were to be bought a great variety purporting to be faithful representations of the events of the siege, such as barricades, executions, streets with dead bodies lying in them, and so forth. These, it is needless to say, were fictitious, carefully-arranged tableaux, but terribly natural, and greedily bought by tourists, the greater portion of whom never for one moment questioned the reality of the representation.
At night we started from the Lyons station for our long-through journey over Mont Cenis, for the tunnel was not yet complete. By morning we were travelling through the lovely scenery from Chambery to St. Michel, the commencement of the Fell railway over the mountain. Here there is a splendid field for the photographic artist, and, so far as I could discover, hitherto unworked. As the railway wound its tortuous way amidst the charming mountain scenery the landscape changed at every turn—bridges, cottages, foliage of every variety, rivers, brooks, and torrents coming into view every instant. Here a photographer might spend weeks without exhausting the rich field for his camera.
At three o’clock St. Michel was reached, and after some inexplicable delay—which, however, gave us the opportunity of making a comfortable dinner—we changed from the ordinary line of railway to the special narrow-gauge carriages on the Fell system for crossing the mountain. A grand journey it is—zigzagging over the steep ascent, through scenery of charming and varied character! This Fell system has been so often described I shall forbear to say more about it, except that it contrasted very favourably both in time and comfort with the old diligence journey I had undergone some years before over the same route.
From our delay in starting we got to the other side of the mountain just in time to miss the last train for Turin, which we had the satisfaction to see leaving the station as we entered it. This involved our stopping at Susa for the night; and, of all wretched, miserable places, commend me to Susa. Nobody stops there who can get away. It was eleven at night, and we had been travelling ever since 8.40 the previous evening. Telling the porter to take us to the best hotel, away we trudged, only too glad to take advantage of any resting-place for the night we could get—a regular old-fashioned Italian hotel, the entry through the kitchen, and the lower part of which, built round a courtyard, was devoted to the horses, cows, and pigs—very picturesque, no doubt, but, as may be easily imagined, anything but savoury in the way of scent.
The next morning we explored the town, which, though small, is the seat of a bishopric. It contains plenty of quaint bits of buildings, which would make good food for the camera, but not a photograph did I see for sale. As soon as breakfast was over we set off for Milan, being anxious to reach that city, as we expected some of our family to meet us there. This involved our missing Turin, the scenery around which is well worth the photographer’s attention, as I know of old, though the city itself has no feature of interest to the artist. At Milan we met with plenty of photographs of the Turin scenery, but, like the rest of the photographs to be seen in the shops assouvenirsof these places of a very inferior character.
At Milan, though there are several good portraitists, the views of the place and surroundings are of a very inferior quality. Shop after shop we visited in the hope of getting a presentable view of the wondrous cathedral, but not one could I succeed in obtaining which would be worth having. In former days, no doubt, there was considerable difficulty in managing to get to a sufficient distance for a good point of view, and wide-angle lenses were not to be had. Now, however, that the Milan Improvements Company have cleared a broad space in front, this difficulty has been removed; but there seems no one who knows how to take advantage of it. Swing backs appear to be unknown, and every view is wretchedly distorted with converging perpendiculars—if such a phrase be admissible—owing to the tilting of the camera.
After spending a few days at Milan we started to visit my eldest son, resident in a small Lombard town off the main track of the railway, where he, as a civil engineer, was superintending the construction of some irrigation works. Here we stayed some days, seeing something of genuine Italian peasant or farmer life, which the ordinary tourist sees nothing of. A primitive life it is. The farmer or peasant grows his own hemp or flax, and steeps it in one of the numerous streams that are led through the place. It is then beaten or rubbed out with the hand, the women specially joining in this labour, and afterwards spinning it with the distaff. When spun it is woven in a primitive handloom into linen for household use; or it is made into ropes by means equally primitive in their arrangement. All these would form numerous interesting groups and bits for the photographer, and tourists would gladly purchase if they could get thesesouvenirsof the peasant in his picturesque costume engaged in these various occupations, standing at the door of the tumble-down cottage, or driving his peculiar cart.
The country is one vast flat, and it is only the people and their dwellings that afford any food for the photographer, but these are well worth recording. To do this, however, the artist must leave the beaten track, and he will need some enthusiasm for his work to make him put up with the wretched accommodation he will meet with in his country tour. We, indeed, were fortunate in not having to avail ourselves of this, staying in very comfortable quarters with our relative. The heat was excessive—so much so, that the navvies engaged on the canal construction worked all but naked, wearing nothing but a shirt.
After a few days’ stay, much interested in all we saw, we rejoined the railway and sped on our way to Arona, steamed along the shore of Lago Maggiore to Pallanza, whence we travelled along the great Simplon route to a village where another son resided, who is connected with the gold mines of that district. Here we took up our abode, making excursions up the Val Ansasca to the foot of Monte Rosa, and visiting the various Italian lakes, passing from one place to another on their shores, sometimes in rowing boats, sometimes in steamers, and sometimes by carriage. In this way we passed through scenes of lake and mountain to which no photographer that we could meet with had done justice. At every place we stopped there were plenty of photographs offered to the tourist, from the humblecarte-de-visitesize to the more pretentious 12 by 10, but not one did I see that was worth having.
Landscape photography seems not to be understood by the Italians. They seem to set the camera down anywhere, without any consideration for picturesque effect—no judgment whatever exercised as to light and shade, and the result is a hard black and white picture with a clean white paper sky, wholly devoid of anything like artistic effect.
What would not a Wilson or an England effect here! I wish they who have done so much for Scotland and Switzerland could be persuaded to cross the Alps and give us the benefit of their labours in these charming scenes. Surely it would answer their purpose to spend some months in these parts. I can promise them, in addition to scenery of surpassing beauty and variety, good hotels and not expensive, with the means of locomotion easy and cheap. If the foregoing lines should induce them or some other competent artists to pay a visit to these regions, I shall, I hope, have done some service to photography and the diffusion of art.
P. Le Neve Foster, M.A., Cantab.