Tourism

The Case Study entitled Tourism, Fashion and ‘The Other’ from the Wells reading discusses the effect of the tourist brochure and tourist advertisement on the way people view, experience, and photograph the pictured destinations. This viewing and picturing through the “dominant photographic language” established through tourist brochures is not necessarily new with the rise of photography. Looking back to the early nineteenth century and the work of the landscape painter Thomas Cole, one can see how the imagery of tourism has shaped the experience of visitors in the same way as it does today with photography. A specific painting by Cole, The Falls of Kaaterskill, painted in 1826, is a landscape of the falls which captures the beauty of the colorful fall leaves of New England, the majesty and power of the falls, and the tranquility of the land. When Cole painted this work, the Kaaterskill Falls had emerged as a major tourist destination, and had been built up to accommodate visitors including the construction of steps, ramps, bridges and viewing decks. In Cole’s painting, however, all of these constructions and the many people who would be present have been evacuated. Even though this is not how the falls would have actually looked to the tourist of the time, this is still the way they would think about and remember the falls.