Analysis of a photograph

Abstract

The analysis of Casa Israelita. Monigotes, of Ernesto H. Schile, taken in 1890, is a brief coda of a research carried out in Santa Fe Province in 1988/89. Firstly, the main aim is to emphasize the need of knowing the historical context that frames a photograph from the past so as to measure its significant density. Likewise, through a formal clearing of the image, we procure to draw attention to its most relevant signs and their internal relations, in this case the immigrant’s family and the ranch in the background. Finally, oriented by these premises, the analysis proposes what is most important for the author in terms of the theoretical objective in the research and the valuing of our patrimonial photographs: the bond between photography and culture, the way in which our photography from the past contributes to implicate us intellectually and emotionally with our common historical development.