Les commandes de photographies documentaires dans le studio Notman (1858-1909) : Naissance d'une mythologie canadienne de l'âge moderne

The author studies selections from three photographic bodies of work commissioned for the Notman studio – the most important photographic studio in Montreal in the second half of the nineteenth century – between 1858 and 1909. In 1858, the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada commissioned William Notman (1826-1891) to photograph the construction of Montreal's Victoria Bridge. Then, in 1871, Notman chose his employee, Benjamin F. Baltzly (1835-1883), to accompany the Geological Survey of Canada and the Pacific Railway Survey of the North Thompson River in British Columbia. Finally, William McFarlane Notman (1857-1913) was hired to document the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway and to advertise the Canadian West through its landscape and wilderness. This commission lasted until 1909. The author examines why these clients resorted to photography, which was at the time a new, costly and cumbersome medium, and then examines the impact that photography had on a wider public. She argues that these photographs conveyed the Canadian mythology of progress, the domination of man over nature, the conquest of the Canadian West and nation-building.

Master's Thesis

Université de Montréal

Montréal

2017

x-144p.

fr