Railroad Viaduct at La Fontaine-des-Eaux, Dinan

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.