The Photographs of Edouard Baldus

Renowned in his lifetime yet virtually forgotten today, Baldus (1813-1889) established classic visual modes for the new medium of photography as he documented on paper negatives France's Roman antiquities; national memorials and architecture, including sections of the Louvre then under construction; countryside studies presaging Impressionist painting; and the development of the national railroad network. Daniel, a photography curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, shows how at the height of his career in Second Empire France, Baldus could sum up an architectural monument in a single, fully resolved image; 177 examples of his work are included in this collection, which will be of interest primarily to specialists. (Nov.)