In
April 1858, the director of the French national civil engineering school
observed that photography “is by now employed on many worksites, not only to
record the details but even to see the state of progress of the construction.”
A photographic library was soon founded at the school, and photographic
instruction became an established part of the curriculum. Not surprisingly,
such photographs—depicting the height of industrial technology and produced by
photographers unencumbered by artistic conventions—now resonate as prescient
examples of a modern aesthetic. With its rushing perspective suggestive of the
speed with which trains would soon travel down these tracks, Louis Lafon’s
photograph of a newly constructed viaduct on the Western Railway line is a
striking emblem of modernity.