Artwork Page for View of Luxor

Details / Information for View of Luxor

View of Luxor

1854

John Beasley Greene

(American, 1832–1856)
Culture
America
Medium
salted paper print from waxed paper negative
Measurements
Image: 23 x 30.5 cm (9 1/16 x 12 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
Credit Line
The A. W. Ellenberger, Sr., Endowment Fund 1995.34
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

On the first of three trips to Egypt, John Beasley Greene created some 200 photographs. His work rarely documented favorite tourist sites in a conventionally descriptive manner; rather, he concentrated on poetic landscapes and archaeologically significant monuments. In this haunting photograph of Luxor, Greene's ability to depict expansive pictorial space is clearly evident. By surrounding the low, blocklike forms of the site's architecture with large vistas of vacant desert and sky, he emphasized a feeling of isolation and abandonment.
A horizontally oriented salted paper print in muted tan tones depicts a desolate landscape. A low ridge holds a cluster of rectangular mud-brick houses to the left, while sloped stone walls and a slender pillar rise on the right. A solitary palm tree punctuates the center. Below, a vast, grainy plain of sand stretches forward; above, a pale, bleached sky occupies the top two-thirds of the frame.

View of Luxor

1854

John Beasley Greene

(American, 1832–1856)
America

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