Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2014
Realism to Surrealism: European art and culture 1848-1936
Sheer Detail: Early Photography c.1835-1880
Craig Judd
12/13 February 2014
Lecture summary:
This lecture is a brief introduction to the excitement, intrigue and fascination that swirled around a
new fangled invention and what it made: the camera, the lens and the photographic image c.1835c.1880. Avid inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) was best known for his work
developing an internal combustion machine the Pyréolophore. He also developed an early form of
the bicycle the Vélocipède. Niépce made the first photographic image which he called the
heliograph June-July 1827. Niépce signed a 10 year partnership with Louis-Jacques-Mandé
Daguerre experimenting with heliography hoping for commercial success until his death in 1833.
In 1837, after making an image of one of the busiest streets in Paris using a complex process of
transferring the scene onto a metal plate Daguerre sold the patent of his invention the
daguerreotype to the French government in 1839. Photography initially was the preserve of
wealthy amateurs and other inventors, but soon became a lucrative profession as popular demand
for images grew. By the mid-nineteenth century the camera was used as a tool for scientific
observation, to capture rural landscapes, to document different social ‘types’ and to create studio
portraits, a commercially viable way of recording family life. As the century progressed, women
photographers were among the most skilled professionals especially in the UK. Photographers
chronicled the great technological achievements of the period as well the street life in increasingly
populated cities. By the 1860s the production of cartes-de-visite and cabinet photographs allowed
the public to collect images of celebrities and royalty as well as their own family members. Though
this medium was burdened with technical constraints, its inventiveness was remarkable.
This is not a lecture weighted towards a description of technical developments. We move across
continents and empires. Obviously the chronology of the lecture suggests that this an age preSelfie, pre-Photoshop, pre-Facebook and Instagram, yet those desires for self fashioning and
display, immediate mass communication, for the sharing and construction of individual experience
and vision is apparent. Significantly how photography most effects traditional art forms is the
exponential growth and blurring of the definitions of genre, cutting across and capturing time .
Key Artists and personages cited
Robert Hill and Octavius Adamson active1843-1848 Scotland U.K
Sir Charles Wheatsone (1802-1875) U.K inventor of the stereoscope patented in 1838, described
the effect of “binocular vision” 1833
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) UK
Roger Fenton (1819-1869) U.K
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1878) U.K
Oscar Gustav Rejlander (born Sweden, 1813–1875) UK tableau artist
Henry Peach Robinson (1830–1901) UK tableau artist
Clementina Maude, Viscountess Hawarden (1822-1865) UK
Louis-Camille D’Olivier (1827-1870) France
Pierre-Louis Pierson (1822-1913) France
Proudly sponsored by
Virginie Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione (1837-1899) collaborator with P.L Pierson
Andre Adolphe-Eugene Disderi (1819-1889) France, inventor of the carte-de-visite
Gaspard Felix Tournachon aka Nadar (1820-1910) France
Underwood and Underwood Stereoscope Company in 1901 claimed to produce 23,000 stereo
cards per day
London Stereoscope Company- over 100,000 images for sale in 1858
Pierre Adolphe Hennetier,(1828-1888) Diabliere stereoscope tableau artist
George Baron Goodman (d.1851) Sydney NSW First professional photographer in Australia
T Douglas Kilburn (1811-1871) Melbourne Victoria, studio established Collins street 1847
Slide List
1.Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) Boulevard du Temple, 3rd Arrondissement AprilMay 8 o‘clock in the morning 1838 daguerreotype (reproduction photograph by Beaumont Newhall
1937) Munich Photography Museum
2. William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) Nelson's Column under Construction, Trafalgar Square,
April 1844
salted paper print from paper negative; 6 3/4 x 8 3/8 in. (17.1 x 21.2 cm) Metropolitan
Museum of Art
2. Douglas Kilburn (c.1811-1871) “South-east aboriginal man and two younger companions 1847
daguerreotype National Gallery of Australia
3. Honoré Daumier, (1808-79) “Nadar elevating Photography to the height of Art” lithograph
published Le Boulevard, May 25, 1863.
4. Gaspard Felix Tournachon/ Nadar “Madame Ernestine Nadar” 1854 Salt print
9 3/4 x 6 3/4 in. J
Paul Getty Museum
5. Roger Fenton (1819–1869) [Still Life with Fruit], 1860 Albumen silver print from glass negative;
13 7/8 x 16 15/16 in. (35.2 x 43.1 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art New York
6. Oscar Gustav Rejlander (1813–1875) Two Ways of Life 1857 carbon print The Royal
Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford, United Kingdom
7. Clementina Maude, Viscountess Hawarden (1822-1865) Isabella Grace and H.B Loch 5 Princes
Gardens South Kensington 1861 albumen print Victoria and Albert Museum
8. Julia Margaret Cameron “King Arthur (William Warder) 1874 albumen print Victoria and Albert
Museum
References
Brian May Denis Pellerin, Paula Fleming “Diableries: stereoscopic adventures in hell” London
Stereoscopic Company 2013
John Hannavy (ed) Encyclopaedia of Nineteenth Century Photography Routledge 2007
Joan Kerr The Dictionary of Australian artists : painters, sketchers, photographers and engravers
to 1870 /
Images
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) Nelson's Column under Construction, Trafalgar Square, April 1844
salted paper
print from paper negative; 6 3/4 x 8 3/8 in. (17.1 x 21.2 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art
Douglas Kilburn (c.1811-1871) “South-east aboriginal man and two younger companions 1847 daguerreotype National
Gallery of Australia
Gaspard Felix Tournachon/ Nadar “Madame Ernestine Nadar” 1854 Salt print
9 3/4 x 6 3/4 in. J Paul Getty Museum
Julia Margaret Cameron “King Arthur (William Warder) 1874 albumen print Victoria and Albert Museum