Unity, Landscape and Place in Colombian Photographs, around 1900

Summary

Around 1900, landscape photography in Colombia contributed to create the first images of the region. Its impact on the way of representing space, compared with pictorial techniques, involved the creation of an image that recognized a visual unity. In this investigation, an analysis of nearly 800 photographs of diverse collections related to the landscape in Colombia has been carried out. Thanks to this, it has been possible to interpret how through the production of these images, and their popularization through media such as the postal card, the development of symbolic emblems of places was promoted. Following closely the idea of unity developed by Georg Simmel and deepening through the notion of cliche of Gilles Deleuze and Ruth Amossy, I will analyze how through the visual adaptations of photography landscape acquired the visual form that allowed it to transform a place into an icon in Colombia.