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Saint-Honorat, Prés d'Arles

Édouard Baldus

1853

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Impressionism Realism Early 19th Century

Dominant colour

Saint-Honorat, Prés d'Arles is a 1853 by Édouard Baldus, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Édouard Baldus
When & what style?: 1853 · Impressionism
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

This photo shows a quiet cemetery with ancient Roman tombs in the foreground. In the back stands a half-built Romanesque church. The tower is missing its top half. Baldus took this in 1853 on a second trip to Arles. He used paper negatives, a new trick at the time. The sky looks almost too smooth, like he printed it twice. Check out the Cleveland Museum of Art to see this print in person.

The story of this work

Overview

Two years after his initial photographic trip to Provence, Baldus returned in 1853 to again document some of the region’s most imposing classical and medieval architectural monuments. His genius both as an architectural photographer and as a printer is easily witnessed in this extraordinary photograph taken in Arles. It depicts an ancient cemetery, the Alyscamps, in the foreground, with the unfinished Romanesque Church of Saint Honorat, dominated by its distinctive two-story bell tower, in the background. On this photographic campaign, this image was the rare occasion when Baldus succeeded in…

Read the full account in the museum source.