Online Study Guide

Rococo: The French Taste :: The Enlightenment: Philosophy and Society :: The Enlightenment: Science and Technology :: Voltaire Versus Rousseau: Science Versus the Taste For the "Natural" :: The Revival of Interest in Classicism :: From Neoclassicism to Romanticism :: The Rise of Romanticism :: Imagination and Mood in Landscape Painting :: Various Revivalist Styles in Architecture :: The Beginnings of Photography

THE BEGINNINGS OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The camera's impact:

The first practical photographic processes were developed in 1839 by Louis J. M. Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot. Photography provided the growing and increasingly powerful middle class with an inexpensive means of recording comprehensible images.

Artists respond to photography:

In the albumen print Draped Model (back view), Delacroix collaborated with the photographer Eugene Durieu to explore how photographic images could be imbued with qualities beyond simple reproduction.

28-63: EUGÈNE DURIEU and EUGÈNE DELACROIX, Draped Model (back view), ca. 1854. Albumen print, 7 5/ 16" x 5 1/8". J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Developing the Daguerreotype:

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, who developed the daguerreotype process, produced pictures remarkable for the perfection of their details and for the richness and harmony of their general effect. In the carefully constructed tableau Still Life in Studio, Daguerre captured the details, the subtle shapes, the varied textures, and the diverse tones of light and shadow.

28-64: LOUIS-JACQUES-MANDÉ DAGUERRE, Still Life in Studio, 1837. Daguerreotype. Collection Société Française de Photographie, Paris.

Still Life in Studio

A picture perfect operation:

In order to take the daguerreotype photograph Early Operation under Ether, Massachusetts General Hospital, Josiah Johnson Hawes and Albert Sands Southworth took their equipment to the gallery of the hospital's operating room.

28-65: JOSIAH JOHNSON HAWES and ALBERT SANDS SOUTHWORTH, Early Operation under Ether, Massachusetts General Hospital, ca. 1847. Daguerreotype. Massachusetts General Hospital Archives and Special Collections, Boston.

Early Operation

A beautiful type of photography:

In 1839, William Henry Fox Talbot introduced the calotype, which made "negative" images by placing objects on chemically sensitized paper and exposing the arrangement to light. With a second sheet, he created "positive" images. His technique allowed multiple prints.

Capturing an artist's likeness:

Gaspar-Félix Tournachon (Nadar) operated a popular portrait studio. His portrait of Delacroix gives the artist a remarkable presence.

28-66: NADAR (GASPARD-FÉLIX TOURNACHON), Eugène Delacroix, ca. 1855. Modern print from original negative in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Delacroix

Character portraits:

While famous portrait photographer, JULIA MARGARET CAMERON (1815-1879), photographed many famous men of her time, she shot more women than men. She often depicted her female subjects as characters in literary or biblical narratives.

28-67: JULIA MARGARET CAMERON, Ophelia, Study no. 2, 1867. Albumen print. George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.

1. Ophelia

Documenting the tragedy of war:

Photography was unrivalled as a means for recording historical events. Photographs of the American Civil War supply objective records of combat deaths. Timothy O'Sullivan's A Harvest of Death shows the bodies of Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg on July 1863.

28-68: TIMOTHY O'SULLIVAN, A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863. Negative by Timothy O'Sullivan. Original print by ALEXANDER GARDNER. The New York Public Library (Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Rare Books and Manuscript Division), New York.