Art Appreciation
October 4, 2010:
Photography (Chapter 9)
Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Ancient Ruins in the Canyon de Chelle (1873)
Paul Martin, Entrance to Victoria Park (1893)
Lewis Hine, Breaker Boys Working in Ewen Breaker of
Pennsylvania Coal Co. (1911)
Hermann Krone, Still Life of the Washerwoman (1853)
Photography and the traditional arts
Photography and the traditional arts
• “Original” and “copy”
Photography and the traditional arts
• “Original” and “copy”
• Photography as the “democratic” art form
Photography and the traditional arts
• “Original” and “copy”
• Photography as the “democratic” art form
• Photography = communicates RELATIVE truth
Photography and the traditional arts
• “Original” and “copy”
• Photography as the “democratic” art form
• Photography = communicates RELATIVE truth
Photography and the traditional arts
•
•
•
•
“Original” and “copy”
Photography as the “democratic” art form
Photography = communicates RELATIVE truth
aesthetic form or document of life?
Photography and the traditional arts
•
•
•
•
“Original” and “copy”
Photography as the “democratic” art form
Photography = communicates RELATIVE truth
aesthetic form or document of life?
The camera obscura
The first photograph – Niepce (1825)
Louis Daguerre
Louis Daguerre
• Invented the daguerreotype process with
Niepce
Louis Daguerre
• Invented the daguerreotype process with
Niepce
• Image formed through mercury and silver
compound to produce an image on a silver
plate
Problems with the Daguerreotype
•
•
•
•
•
There was no negative; only originals
Left-right reversal
Expensive silver plates
Very fragile
Highly poisonous bromine & mercury vapors
Daguerre’s Le boulevard du temple (1838)
Problems with the Daguerreotype
•
•
•
•
•
•
There was no negative; only originals
Left-right reversal
Expensive silver plates
Very fragile
Highly poisonous bromine & mercury vapors
Long exposure times
The Calotype Process
The Calotype Process
• Introduced by Fox Talbot in 1841
The Calotype Process
• Introduced by Fox Talbot in 1841
• Photography on paper, with a few minutes of
exposure time in good light
The Calotype Process
• Introduced by Fox Talbot in 1841
• Photography on paper, with a few minutes of
exposure time in good light
• Advantage over daguerreotype: prints could
be made
The Calotype Process
• Introduced by Fox Talbot in 1841
• Photography on paper, with a few minutes of
exposure time in good light
• Advantage over daguerreotype: prints could
be made
• Paper lessened the detail of the picture
The Calotype Process
• Introduced by Fox
Talbot in 1841
• Photography on
paper, with ½ hour
exposure time
• Advantage over
daguerreotype:
prints could be
made
• Paper lessened the
detail of the
picture
The Collodion process
The Collodion process
• Renders both daguerreotype and calotype
obsolete – 1851
The Collodion process
• Renders both daguerreotype and calotype
obsolete – 1851
• Replace the calotype’s paper with glass
The Collodion process
• Renders both daguerreotype and calotype
obsolete – 1851
• Replace the calotype’s paper with glass
• Creates a more detailed, stable negative
The Collodion process
• Renders both daguerreotype and calotype
obsolete – 1851
• Replace the calotype’s paper with glass
• Creates a more detailed, stable negative
• Allows the artist to make an unlimited number
of prints from a single negative
Louis Pierson,
Countess
Castiglione
(1860)
The Collodion process
• http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/videoDe
tails?cat=2&segid=1726&segnr=1
Early experiments in photographic
portraiture: daguerreotype (1843)
Early experiments in photographic
portraiture: daguerreotype (1843)
• A tripod
• The rigid posture
and expressions
of the sitter
• Timing of the
exposure
• Two prints
required two
sittings
Early experiments in photographic
portraiture: calotype
Early experiments in photographic
portraiture: calotype
David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, Free
Church of Scotland, 1843 (oil painting)
Capt. Robert-Barclay Allardyce
(Hill/Adamson)
Hill/Adamson, The Misses Binny and
Miss Monro (1845)
Hill/Adamson, The Misses Binny and
Miss Monro (1845)
• Relative to painting, the
calotype showed “the imperfect
work of man … and not the
perfect work of God.”
Collodion’s impact on Portraiture
Collodion’s impact on Portraiture
• Made commercial portraiture possible on a
large scale
Collodion’s impact on Portraiture
• Made commercial portraiture possible on a
large scale
• Ease of reproducing prints and better quality
of prints
Photography & Portraiture
Photography & Portraiture
• Since Renaissance, portraits associated with
‘inner character’
Photography & Portraiture
• Since Renaissance, portraits associated with
‘inner character’
• Neither Daguerre’s or Talbot’s process suitable
to portraiture: 15 minutes or more of stillness
in sunshine
Photography & Portraiture
• Since Renaissance, portraits associated with
‘inner character’
• Neither Daguerre’s or Talbot’s process suitable
to portraiture: 15 minutes or more of stillness
in sunshine
• The development of collodion that makes
portraiture commercially viable and popular
Debates over photography
Debates over photography
• Baudelaire: Photography is “the refuge of
failed painters with too little talent”
Debates over photography
• Baudelaire: Photography is “the refuge of
failed painters with too little talent”
• In the decades following its discovery, a search
for ways to fit a mechanical medium into
traditional ideas of art
Debates over photography
• Baudelaire: Photography is “the refuge of failed
painters with too little talent”
• In the decades following its discovery, a search for ways
to fit a mechanical medium into traditional ideas of art
In this debate, three main positions
emerged:
• 1. Photographs were too ‘mechanical’ to be
art
• Charles Blanc: “Photography copies everything
and explains nothing, it is blind to the realm of
the spirit.”
• Lady Eastlake: Claimed that art was about
“Truth, Reality, Beauty,” and that the camera
image could fulfill the first two of these, but
never the third
In this debate, three main positions
emerged:
• 1. Photographs were too ‘mechanical’ to be
art
• 2. Photographs would be useful to art but
should not be considered equal in
creativeness to drawing and painting
In this debate, three main positions
emerged:
• 1. Photographs were too ‘mechanical’ to be
art
• 2. Photographs would be useful to art but
should not be considered equal in
creativeness to drawing and painting
• 3. Camera images could be significant as
handmade works of art
• “The lens is an instrument like the pencil and
the brush, and photography is a process like
engraving and drawing, for what makes an
artist is not the process but the feeling.”
Julia Margaret Cameron, Annie (1864)
Julia Margaret Cameron, Annie (1864)
-Pioneered the use of
close-ups
Julia Margaret Cameron, Annie (1864)
-Pioneered the use of
close-ups
-Soft focus
Julia Margaret Cameron, Annie (1864)
-Pioneered the use of
close-ups
-Soft focus
-used lighting to
enhance the images
of her subjects
Julia Margaret Cameron, Annie (1864)
-Pioneered the use of
close-ups
-Soft focus
-used lighting to
enhance the images
of her subjects
-raking light
The impact of photography on the
traditional arts
The impact of photography on the
traditional arts
• Artists begin to incorporate ‘camera vision’
into the traditional arts
The impact of photography on the
traditional arts
• Healy,
Church,
and
McEntee:
The Arch
of Titus
(1871; oil
on canvas)
The impact of photography on the
traditional arts
• Gustave Courbet, A Burial at Ornans (1849-50)
Charles Negre, Young Girl Seated with
Basket, (1852)
Humbert de Molard, The Hunters (1851)
Hermann Krone, Still Life of the Washerwoman
(1853)
Charles Philippe Auguste Carey,
Still Life with Waterfowl, 1873
Photography
Photography
• Reveals the photographer’s personal way of
seeing and responding to the world
Photography
• Reveals the photographer’s personal way of
seeing and responding to the world
• Photography means “light-writing”
Photography
• Reveals the photographer’s personal way of
seeing and responding to the world
• Photography means “light-writing”
• usually associated with family history,
journalism, advertising, public relations
Photography
• Reveals the photographer’s personal way of
seeing and responding to the world
• Photography means “light-writing”
• usually associated with family history,
journalism, advertising, public relations
• An artistic means of expression
Photography as Art
• The artist’s choices:
Photography as Art
• The artist’s choices:
– Subject
Photography as Art
• The artist’s choices:
– Subject
– Light
Photography as Art
• The artist’s choices:
– Subject
– Light
– Angle
Photography as Art
• The artist’s choices:
– Subject
– Light
– Angle
– Focus
Photography as Art
• The artist’s choices:
– Subject
– Light
– Angle
– Focus
– Distance
Photography as Art
• The artist’s choices:
– Subject
– Light
– Angle
– Focus
– Distance
– Composition
Ansel Adams
Adams, Moonrise (1975)
• The artist’s
choices:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Subject
Light
Angle
Focus
Distance
Composition