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work of the month

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Buddha, Le Shan, Szechuan, China, 1986

Lois Conner (American, b.1951)
Platinum print
Purchase, gift of Christina and George Kemp

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Every day, millions of people around the world take a photograph of a family member, friend, or favorite location. Millions more glance at a photograph for their own personal reasons. Why, from a snapshot of the family dog to the silvery image of a sculptured Buddha in a foreign land, are photographs so compelling? The answers to that question will vary with each viewer, although to most people it is still amazing that a portion of the real world can be captured and reproduced on a piece of paper!

Who is photographer Lois Conner?

Born in the United States in 1951, Lois Conner studied at Yale University, where she became fascinated with Chinese hand scrolls from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) periods. These hand scrolls introduced her to the "impossible landscape" of Chinese mountains, precipices, towering rocks, checkered fields, ravines, mists, waterfalls, elegant trees and flowers. Inspired by the elongated, multi-viewed presentation of subject matter painted onto the scrolls, Conner began, in 1982, to take photographs with a "banquet camera," which produces an elongated 7 by 17 inch image.

In 1984, Lois Conner won a Guggenheim Fellowship, which made possible her first trip to China. Because Chairman Mao Zedong had died in 1976, Chinese artists were beginning to free themselves from the dictates of the Communist Party, making it possible for a blond, Western, woman to travel to unlikely places in search of subject matter previously unavailable to Western artists. As the political climate became more tolerant, and as Conner's language skills increased, she was able to travel to such remote locations as Le Shan in the Sichuan area of China. Since her first visit, Conner has returned to China frequently; her last trip was in early 2001.

Why is the sculpture of the Buddha in this photograph so special?

It takes a moment of careful looking to find the hand of the Great Buddha on the right side of the photograph, and his gigantic foot at the bottom of the picture. Carved from living rock in the eighth century, the entire Buddha is 231 feet tall, the world's largest depiction of the great teacher. It overlooks the convergence of the Min and Dadu rivers at Le Shan, which can be seen in the background. It was hoped that Buddha's influence would protect boatmen from the dangerous river currents and stop the river from flooding. Inside the sculpture, there is an ingenious system of drains that have helped prevent water damage and prevent weathering for over 1,200 years.

What is a platinum print?
Platinum prints are noted for their long tonal scale, especially in the mid-tone range between shadows and highlights. Invented by William Willis in 1873, the process employs chloride of platinum as the light-sensitive agent. Platinum prints are exceptionally archival, or permanent.

Lois Conner remembers taking this photograph:
"My first view of the Great Buddha, the Dafo, was from the cascading stairway next to the statue. Then I stood below, looking up from the point of view of his almighty toe. I walked up another stairway to the cliff behind his head, awed by what I say. As I hurriedly set up my camera to catch the late afternoon light, I didn't stop to think of the precariousness of my position. Only a shaky iron fence stood between me and the sheer drop of the cliff. As I pulled the slide out of the filmholder and exposed my first photograph, I became aware of an uncanny silence. Suddenly, a warning cry from the crowd that had gathered to watch me welled into a crescendo that filled the air. I was startled into realizing that my camera was about to careen over the ledge. In my haste, I hadn't counterweighted the tripod, which was now off balance because I had turned the camera vertically to frame the length of the statue. I caught it just in time, the crowd's roar saving this image."

-- Ann Dearsley Vernon

RESOURCES

Goldberg, Vicki. "Allowing the Chinese to Look Chinese." The New York Times. 29 Oct. 2000: Art and Architecture Section.

Journey Into China. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1982.

Photography in the Permanent Collection - Educational Materials approved by Brooks Johnson, Curator of Photography. Norfolk: Chrysler Museum of Art, 1991.

Spence, Jonathan, Geremie R. Barme and Lois Conner. The Photographs of Lois Conner, China. New York: Callaway Press, 2000.