Charles Marville and the Landscapes of the Carrières d'Amérique. Issue 3 (3rd July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Locke, Nancy
• Is Part Of: History of photography. Volume 43:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 251
• Page End: 265
• Publication Date: 2019-07-03
• Subjects: Charles Marville (Charles François Bossu, 1813–79) -- Henri Le Secq (1818–82) -- Paris -- quarries -- Belleville -- Georges-Eugène Haussmann -- Carrières d'Amérique; Photography -- History -- Periodicals; 770.905
• DOI: 10.1080/03087298.2019.1726100
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0308-7298

Abstract

Abstract : Charles Marville's photographs of Paris preserve the look of streets slated for demolition under Georges-Eugène Haussmann. This article examines his photographs of the Carrières d'Amérique, or America Quarries – gypsum quarries in the outlying Parisian neighbourhood of Belleville. At a time when the rezoning of districts that were formerly extra muros was still controversial, Belleville was seen as a crime-ridden area. Marville's photographs become documents that refute contemporary narratives of criminality. Borrowing Walter Benjamin's view that the city 'opens up' to the flâneur 'as a landscape', the article analyses Marville's landscapes of the Carrières d'Amérique as images that juxtapose the city, the work site, and the no-man's land or terrains vagues at Paris's outer limits.