"Herbstspaziergang, Tirol"

pigment-based inkjet print from original autochrome lumière

artist sign imprint, stamp (ArtPhotographyFund SPC) on verso

Painting, graphic or photography? Blurred details and fuzzy contours make it difficult to classify. And that is intentional: Around 1900, photography pioneer Heinrich Kühn experimented with so-called noble printing processes such as rubber printing or, as here, the color process autochrome. He wanted to enhance the then new medium of photography. Kühn thus inseparably combined different media and created particularly atmospheric photographs.
This shot shows a small group of women strolling with umbrellas under a chestnut tree from a special perspective. The image is dominated by the autumnal colors of the chestnut tree. The first color processes, which were practiced from the middle of the 19th century, were hardly practical. It was not until the Lumière brothers invented the Autochrome color screen plates in 1907 that a color photograph could be made with a single shutter release. The Autochrome was to remain the only mass-market color process until the introduction of modern color film in the mid-1930s.
Because autochromes were translucent images (transparencies), they were either enlarged onto screens with high-speed projection apparatus or shown in transmitted-light viewing apparatus. The color quality was so magnificent that Kühn literally spoke of "dangerously colorful images".
(Johann Werfring, Wiener Zeitung, 2014)