![Two boys and woman in boat, Sea Girt Marriott C. Morris Collection [P.2013.13.82]](http://librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/mcm-p-2013-13-82-2-800x493.jpg)
Two boys and woman in boat, Sea Girt Marriott C. Morris Collection [P.2013.13.82]
What is it about these evocative images, that they impel an almost automatic response: the relaxed, unfocused gaze of remembrance and daydreams?
Perhaps that is what draws me to these images. They float into the present moment like a vapor. They speak in a whisper, both ephemeral and urgent, about something half-remembered, half-dreamed. They inspire questions and musings about our experience of place, both past and present.
Morris’s photographs are full of mystery, lost language, and people long gone from this earth. A ghostly trace of a shadow drifts past the woman. What draws the boy’s gaze? Yet the stark geometry of the landscape provides a familiar anchor, a connection to the here and now. By uniting earth, sea, and sky into a sharp point, Morris creates a composition that is timeless and universal, at least on our Earth. It’s an instantly recognizable expression of place: the seaside.
![Woman and dog in boat, Sea Girt Marriott C. Morris Collection [P.2013.13.142]](http://librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/mcm-p-2013-13-142-2-378x600.jpg)
Woman and dog in boat, Sea Girt Marriott C. Morris Collection [P.2013.13.142]
My sketch of a Morris image.
Words in place of objects, and just three lines are all that is needed to convey a very specific sense of place.
His photographs are composed with deliberation, and these mute, “permeable” images have a strong voice that carries through time. I like to think of them as encoded transmissions. Most came into the collections at the Library Company of Philadelphia in the form of glass-plate and film negatives, essentially unintelligible and inaccessible. Through the mediums of light, paper, and digital imaging, images of past-place have been decoded.
Boat “Scythian New York” adorned with several flags sailing among several vessels
Marriott C. Morris Collection [*P.9895.13.2]
Three masted schooner “Vanname & King” from beach
Marriott C. Morris Collection [P.9895.1025] “Looking into the sun”
Only partly decoded though.These photographs give rise to musings about communication, context, and the transmission of ideas. A common enough sight in the late 19th-century, but to describe them in words today would require a fair bit of historical research. What is the term for that particular form of boat, or the meaning behind the symbols on the flags? What are they saying to us, humankind, in the 21st century?
![The Samuels' canoe. Mr. S. [Samuel], Patty Mellor, & Eli K. Price in it. [Sea Girt, NJ] Marriott C. Morris Collection [P.9895.1151]](http://librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/mcm-p-9895-1151-2-751x600.jpg)
The Samuels’ canoe. Mr. S. [Samuel], Patty Mellor, & Eli K. Price in it. [Sea Girt, NJ]
Marriott C. Morris Collection [P.9895.1151]
![Picture shows one woman and three men, seated next to each other, and holding instruments. The woman holds an accordion in her lap and she looks slightly down. To her left is a man, his eyes closed, who holds a viola perpendicular to his lap with one hand and a bow in his other. To his left is a man resting a cello between his legs. He holds a bow across the base of the cello with his right hand. To his left is the last man, his eyes closed, who holds a violin by his left shoulder and a raised bow in in his right hand. The woman, as well as the man who holds a cello, wear glasses. The woman wears a dark dash colored corseted dress with long sleeves and a long skirt. The men, who look toward the viewer, are bearded and wear dark dash colored suits. [End of description]](https://librarycompany.org/wp-content/uploads/hostetler-music-p-2014-60-1-cdv-1-80x80.jpg)