Across the West and toward the North: Norwegian and American landscape photography

Abstract

"In "Across the West and Toward the North," editors Shannon Egan and Marthe Tolnes Fjellestad explore connections between nineteenth-century Norwegian and American photography. Many of the most accomplished American photographers of the nineteenth century, including Timothy O'Sullivan, William Henry Jackson, and Andrew J. Russell, are taken up here alongside their Norwegian contemporaries Knud Knudsen and Anders Beer Wilse. According to the editors, these photographers captured not only the spectacular beauty and grandeur of the American West and Norway, but were part of, as Egan writes, "a transnational aesthetic" that engaged "technological change, exploitation of the environment, and . . . the consequences . . . of rapid industrial development." Far from working in isolation, American and Norwegian photographers concurrently touched on "transatlantic issues related to nation-building, immigration, tourism, and artistic production."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Ragged places and rugged men : photography, the American West, and masculine mettle / James R. Swensen -- Traveling with Knud Knudsen : roads and railways in Norwegian photography / Torild Gjesvik -- Getting soaked at Yellowstone : photography and the making of the tourist landscape / Elizabeth Hutchinson -- Nature and photography : Anders Beer Wilse's photographic equivalents / Trond Erik Bjorli -- Dwelling in the photographic landscape / Elizabeth Hutchinson -- Views across continents : 10 photographs / Marthe Tolnes Fjellestad -- Lieutenant von Hahnke's ill-fated bicycle trip / Marthe Tolnes Fjellestad -- On a summer snowbank, a view toward the glacier / Shannon Egan -- Carl Abraham Pihl and Andrew J. Russell : railway landscapes / Torild Gjesvik -- Landscapes with more than mountains : give and take / James R. Swensen.