Simmel’s alpine aesthetics and the stereoscope. The aesthetic qualities of the stereoscopic gaze and the stereo views by Manuel Alvarez

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I argue that the practices of stereoscopic photography throughout the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century can be interpreted as technological answers to many of the questions raised by the theories of art regarding the landscape genre, such as immersion, volume, scale, and subjectivity. However, it was not a direct influence, since stereoscopic photography was perceived as part of popular culture and, thus, excluded from the artistic field. Stereoscopy’s middlebrow reputation is largely due to the perception that photography’s automated character and its mass diffusion as a visual commodity would prevent it from gaining any artistic value. To assert the possibility of a filiation in landscape theories, I focus on two essays by Georg Simmel, ‘The Alps’ (1911) and ‘The Philosophy of Landscape’ (1913), which are representative of these modern debates. I argue that the exclusion of photography from Simmel’s essays does not prevent us from a cultural reading, clarifying both that exclusion and the possibility of relating stereoscopic images to the pictorial challenges of the time. This is to state that visuality, although moulded by institutions and power, also spreads across many different social fields. I take as an example the alpine stereo photographs by the Portuguese amateur Manuel Alvarez, a tourist and photographer in the Swiss Alps at the same period of Simmel’s essays.

KEYWORDS:

• Stereoscopy
• photography
• early 20th century visual culture
• manuel Alvarez
• alpine aesthetics
• simmel

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank to Ana David Mendes, curator at mimo Museum at the time of the research, Pedro Arrabaça for the translation and Vito Evola for proofreading and discussing the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The stereoscope was an invention of the British Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875) in 1838 as a contribution to the study of vision, specifically the debate on the reasons why we possess two eyes and their possible functions concerning tree dimensionality. The stereoscope was a device he conceived to demonstrate that thesis, using drawings since photography would only be presented to the public the following year, in January 1839 (see The Scientific Papers of Charles Wheatstone, 1879).

2. The baptism certificate states that he was the ‘legitimate son of Diogo Alvarez y Rivera, merchant, and Joaquina Cruces et Cortiñas (…) from Spain, with residence in Lisbon, Ofício (?) Street, 28’.

3. The address of this Hotel was filled in Alvarez’ application form to the first semester of Lausanne Faculty of Medicine in 1911.

4. In their 1965 study ‘The peasant and photography’ Bourdieu and Bourdieu (1965) argued that the price was not the only reason for the low practice of photography among French peasants. The most important factor was the perception of photography as an urban, modern and leisure activity that would undermine the peasant ‘ethos’. This is specially true for landscape photography, perceived as an image with no useful function unless for pleasure and elevated taste.

5. Many of the most distinguished Portuguese photographers of the 19th century developed stereoscopy in parallel to their monoscopic photographic practices (Sena 1998; Flores 2019). Names such as Alfred Fillon (1825–81), José Nunes da Silveira, João Francisco Camacho (1833–98), Carlos Relvas (1838–94) and many others issued their own collections of stereo cards under different designations: Vistas de Portugal [Views from Portugal] by Carlos Relvas; Panorama de Lisboa [Lisbon Panorama], by Filipe Mesquita and José Alexandre & C.; Fotografia Artística [Artistic Photography] by A. J. Raposo or Scenas de Portugal [Scenes from Portugal] by Antero Frederico de Seabra, although many cards did not exhibit their authorship. At the beginning of the 20th century, this type of collections assumed its stereoscopic nature: Estereoscopias – Assumptos Portugueses [Stereoscopy – Portuguese Topics] by Justino de Carvalho; Estereoscopia Portuguesa [Portuguese Stereoscopy] by Daniel Augusto Bento and from the pioneer of Portuguese cinema, Aurélio da Paz dos Reis (1862–1931), the stereo collection Estereoscópio Portuguez [Portuguese Stereoscope] (Flores 2016, 30). Some Portuguese museums and private collectors own an assortment of international cards bought to Portuguese families testifying their circulation during these times.

6. All English translations from the Portuguese version (Simmel 2011) are ours, having consulted the French version as well (Simmel 1988).

7. A device used as a drawing aid, based on a projective prism, patented in 1807 by William Hyde Wollaston. Its objective was also to answer to the aesthetic aspirations of the least endowed: ‘An instrument with which anyone can draw in perspective or copy and reduce any print or drawing’ (London: Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottswoode, 1807).

8. More information at https://3dalps.wordpress.com/, consulted in March 2020.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [PEST/COM/VIO 0653/2014], PTDC/IVC-COM/5223/2012,SFRH/BPD/72321/2010].

Notes on contributors

Maria Teresa Silva Guerreiro Mendes Flores

Maria Teresa Silva Guerreiro Mendes Flores received her PhD in Communication Sciences from Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2010. She is a photography and film historian and a researcher on optical media theories and semiotics. Professor Mendes Flores is a full researcher at the Institute of Communication, ICNOVA at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. She published Cinema and Modern Experience (Minerva, Coimbra, 2007), and co-edited Photography and Cinema. 50 Years of Chris Marker’s La Jetée (Cambridge Scholars, 2015), as well as several book chapters and papers in various academic journals. Present interests include photography and science in colonial contexts, namely regarding the scientific expeditions. She is the principal investigator of ‘Photo Impulse’ research project funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (https://www.photoimpulse.fcsh.unl.pt). She teaches at Lusófona University.