From Monday, the Geneva Library is presenting an exhibition of photographs dedicated to tourists taking the Grand Tour in Switzerland in the 19th century. Visitors embark on a journey through time between Geneva, Chamonix, Valais and Bernese Oblerland.
This exhibition was designed based on the funds of photographers Auguste Garcin (1816-1895) and John Jullien (1818-1887) which includes approximately 5,000 albumen papers and 2,000 stereoscopic images. These documents, in the process of being fully digitized, will be made available to the public online.
In the meantime, visitors can discover a small sample at the Geneva Library. The exhibition offers a photographic story that tourists who came to Switzerland could do on their return after purchasing the photos. “It was before postcards which developed in Geneva in the 20th century,” explains Eloi Contesse, one of the commissioners.
The public can thus follow the journey of Jemima Morrell, an Englishwoman who participated in the first package trip to Switzerland in 1863, organized by the Thomas Cook agency. She recounted her 20-day journey in a now-famous travel journal. Tourists of that time walked a lot and wanted to escape the cities to seek the beauties of nature.
In Geneva, the Englishwoman makes a morning trip to La Jonction before leaving for Chamonix, an obligatory crossing point before going to Valais. The photos of tourists surveying the glaciers illustrate this first stage. We find in particular the Glacier des Bossons as well as the famous Mer de Glace.
Industrialization in progress
The small group then reaches the Trient valley on foot and on the back of a mule, whose gorges can be seen in the photographs. Arriving in Martigny, tourists head to Sion by train then Leukerbad and then the Bernese Oberland. Zermatt, then out of the way, was not yet one of the top destinations for tourists.
The exhibition also shows images from the Bernese Oberland and central Switzerland. The Rigi, already very popular, symbolizes the industrialization of tourism in the Apes. Paradoxically, the much-admired Alpine environment is invariably standardized and transformed into a commodity. This problem, which emerged at the end of the 19th century, is more relevant than ever with natural sites becoming “instagrammable”.
www.bge-geneve.ch
This article was automatically published. Source: ats
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