"View of Sacred Bridge at Nikko" – CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

The weather is decidedly springlike outside, and though I've learned more than once not to declare this winter over until some time in mid-July, I've decided to tempt the fates. I was rather enjoying the winter, frigid cold and all, but the beautifully hand-colored View of Sacred Bridge at Nikko has given me a bad case of spring fever. The rushing water of the Daiya River and green of the foliage make me wish I were somewhere other than behind a desk, though it's the vibrant red hue of the bridge that initially caught my eye, striking even in thumbnail form.

View of Sacred Bridge at Nikko is from the Grace Ward 19th Century Photograph Collection from Knox College, which compiles 256 photographs from the collection of Ward, a missionary and teacher who spent almost thirty years teaching and traveling in South and East Asia. The collection contains portraits, landscapes, and city scenes, all taken at a time in which places like India, Japan, and Egypt seemed far more distant and exotic to the average American than they do in this age of internet access and air travel. The places they depict might be more familiar to viewers today, but the photos have lost none of their visual power in the intervening century since they were created.

Written by Adam Strohm, Digital Collections Librarian, The Newberry Library

For more information about this and other CARLI Digital Collections, visit http://collections.carli.illinois.edu

To learn more about becoming part of CARLI Digital Collections and using CONTENTdm, see http://www.carli.illinois.edu/products-services/contentdm and http://wiki.carli.illinois.edu/index.php/Portal:CONTENTdm.