Darius Professor: A. Spieth Art History Program LSU School of Art
Formal requirements (Syllabus)
"A History of Louisiana Photography" exhibition at
Hill Memorial Library The Invention of Photography from the Heliograph to the Daguerreotype
It is difficult to overestimate the impact of the invention of photography on art since the second half of the 19th century In the longer run, this invention brought about something like an identity crisis for painting and the visual arts, since it threatened to take away the monopoly in representing physical reality Photography in the mid-19th century was a complex chemical and physical process, mostly reserved for "initiates" and insiders, which was more reminiscent of alchemy than of science: there were numerous competing photographic processes available, every one of them requiring a different set of secret chemicals, glass plates, and photosensitive paper Technological innovations were shared in photographic societies and through various short-lived publications These circumstances make the history of photography a difficult story to tell: it was driven primarily by technological innovations and only secondarily by the history of aesthetic ideas During the 19th century, photography was a contested issue in artistic circles: it was frequently perceived as a link between art and industry, which fascinated some and repulsed others
The poet Charles Baudelaire was one of the most adamant critics of
photography; in this writing the "Salon of 1859" he made the following case against photography:
"Thus an industry that could give us as a result the identical to Nature
would be the absolute of art. A revengeful God has given ear to prayers of the multitude. Daguerre was his Messiah. And now the faithful says to himself: `Since photography gives us every guarantee of exactitude that we could desire (they really believe that, the mad fools!), then photography and art are the same thing?' From that moment on, our squalid society rushed, Narcissus to a man, to gaze at its trivial image on a scrap of metal. A madness, an extraordinary fanaticism took possession of all these sun-worshippers. Strange abominations took form."
Camera obscura types, ca. 1820
The camera obscura had been known and used by artists for centuries before the invention of photography Antecedents of the camera obscura go back to Battista Alberti, who in 1437 devised a mechanism to project perspective views through a small hole in a box Invention of the camera obscura is owed to Giambattista della Porta who first introduced the invention to a wider audience through his book Magiae Naturalis, published in 1558 Problem: no possibility to fix images projected on the ground plate permanently; methods to do so were only invented in the early 19th century > birth of photography
Jan Vermeer, The Letter, 1666, oil o/canvas Master painter ("specialist") of Dutch domestic life; inn keeper and art dealer Long forgotten, but rediscovered in 19th and 20th centuries Appeal of "soft focus" renderings of Dutch interiors>use of camera obscura Vermeer used the primitive viewing device primarily as an aid for drawing
Portrait of Joseph Nicphore Nipce
First person to succeed in fixing permanently the images projected by a camera obscura Nicphore Nipce and his brother Claude were ardent inventors: patented for example an internal combustion engine powered by intermittent explosions of lycopodium powder (Pyrolophre) > used invention to drive up a boat against the wind on the Sone River After the invention of lithography in 1815, Nicphore proposed replacing the cumbersome Solenhofen stones required for the process with coated metal plates For his experiments, he needed drawings, but since he had little artistic skills, he conceived of the idea of making them by means of light
On April 1, 1816, he wrote to his brother in
London:
"The experiments that I have thus far made
lead me to believe that my process will succeed as far as the principle effect is concerned, but I must succeed in fixing the colors; this is what occupies me at the moment, and it is most difficult"
A few days later, he described his camera as "a
kind of artificial eye, simply a little box, each side six inches square; which will be fitted with a tube that can be lengthened and carrying a lenticular glass"
It were thus experiments with lithography,
which led to his attempt to take a photographs, using a camera obscura
Joseph Nicphore Nipce, Copy of Engraving of General d'Amboise, heliograph with engraving, 1826
Hybrid between photography and engraving Niepce came up with a method of combining the use of a camera obscura with zinc plates covered with bitumen of Judea, which, when exposed to light, hardened permanently He dissolved the bitumen in lavender oil, a solvent often used in varnishes, and coated the sheet of pewter with this light capturing mixture, he placed the sheet inside a camera obscura to capture the picture, and many hours later removed it and washed it with lavender oil to remove the unexposed bitumen
First subject he "photographed" with this
hybrid technique was a seventeenth-century engraving by Isaac Briot of Georges d'Ambroise, Cardinal and Archbishop of Rheims (top); excellent proofs of it were still pulled as late as 1870
He then produced a heliographic negative of
the engraving, using the process previously described
Not satisfied with the results, he sent the plate
to an engraver, Augustin-Franois Lematre, who engraved the blurry photographic outlines manually, before Nipce would print a positive again (seen in previous slide)
Joseph Nicphore Nipce, View from His Window at Le Gras, heliograph, 1826
First photograph (properly
speaking) ever to be made; image reversed
View was taken from an upper
window of his estate "Le Gras" in the village of Saint Loup de Varenne, near his native town of Chalon-surSane; it shows an open windowframe and outbuildings in the farmyard
He called this process heliography or
"sun writing" to indicate that the process recorded the world in terms of light and shadow
Process had a major
drawback: exposure time was 8 hrs., taking so much time that the sun passed overhead and thus illuminating both sides of the courtyard in this view; only very static scenes and objects could be recorded Pictures were one of a kind This limitation determined the choice of his first subject: a view out of his window
Joseph Nicphore Nipce, Set Table, heliograph, ca. 1827 (no longer extant)
Photograph about contemporary with
the previous "View from Window"
Recorded on glass Subject: table set for a meal > objects
(bottle, knife, spoon, bowl, saucer, wineglass, loaf of bread) are well defined, have middle tones, highlights, cast shadows
A more successful work as a
photograph
Heliograph presented to the French
Society of Photography in 1890, from whose archives it miraculously disappeared
Charles Richard Meade, Louis-JacquesMand Daguerre, 1848, Daguerreotype
In 1827, Nipce traveled to London to
visit his brother, Claude, who was ill
He took with him the farmyard picture
and other heliographs
On his way from Chalon-sur-Sane, he
stopped in Paris, where he visited the painter Louis-Jacques-Mand Daguerre, who was conducting research towards the same end: capturing the camera image by the "spontaneous action of light"
Daguerre was an artist, set designer, and inventor In collaboration with Charles Bouton, he had already displayed a Diorama at Place du Chteau in Paris. In 1826, optician Charles Chevalier informed Daguerre of the invention on which Nipce had been working since 1816 (both men were Chevalier's customers and bought lenses from him)
After lengthy discussions, the two inventors joined forces to further develop the research done by Nipce.
In a written agreement, Nipce promised to inform Daguerre of "all details of his research" and Daguerre, in turn promised to reveal "all his improvements of the camera" On December 4, 1829, Nipce and Daguerre signed articles of partnership, which were to last ten yrs.; Nipce died four years later
Louis-Jacques-Mand Daguerre, The Ruins of
Holyrood Chapel, ca. 1824, oil o/linen
Daguerre first became famous for the development of dioramas > structures designed by Daguerre for displaying his and Charles-Marie Bouton's huge paintings Most of the themes of the paintings were landscapes, chapel interiors and volcanoes
Often real props were added to enhance spectators' experience
Lighting from the front and the back of the picture was used to suggest gradual passage from day to evening light as well the appearance and disappearance of actors and actresses When one scene of the play was completed the auditorium was rotated to bring another view or picture on stage.
These dioramas were in an early form of cinema and were very popular
The first diorama was opened in Paris in 1822. Its success was such that Daguerre was asked to design another one in London, which opened in Park Square East, Regent's Park in 1823
Daguerre exhibited dioramas of Holyrood Chapel in Paris from 1823 until 1824, in London from 1825 March and in Liverpool from 1825 until 1827 There is no record of Daguerre's visit to the Chapel although the view by moonlight of the Holyrood Chapel was famous Aesthetically, the diorama anticipates early photographic images; especially Daguerreotype (named after Daguerre)
A short description of how a Daguerreotype is made:
First, one takes a silver coated copper plate; this is polished with pumice powder and olive oil. Then the plate is made light sensitive by exposing it to iodine crystals in a container (iodine fumes react with silver to form a light-sensitive silver-iodine coating on the surface of the plate); the plate is exposed in a camera
The plate is then developed in a container with mercury; the mercury is heated to 75 degrees Celsius and the vapor develops the plate
The plate is then put in an ordinary acid fixing solution and rinsed with hot distilled water The result is the record of the lights in the image rendered in frosted, whitish mercury amalgam
To avoid oxidation the plate is mounted in a airtight case Every Daguerreotype is a mirror image and is unique
There is only one such picture
Daguerre Camera
Some Daguerreotypes
Louis-Jacques-Mand Daguerre, Still Life, 1837, Daguerreotype
In 1837, Daguerre tested his new technology for the first time successfully
Still life of plaster casts, a wicker-covered bottle, and framed drawing, drapery Detailed picture showing a wide range of tones between highlight and shadow Convincing realism in in texture, contours , volume Earliest surviving example of what Daguerre now called the Daguerreotype Soon, new technology attracted attention of newspapers, publications in specialized scientific journals
Louis-Jacques-Mand Daguerre, Boulevard du Temple, Daguerreotype, 1838
Another famous, very early Daguerreotype, featuring a reknown amusement and theater district in Paris Daguerre built upon the innovations by Nipce, but came out with the very first commercially viable photographic technique (soon, Daguerreotypes were mass marketed) Still, many drawbacks continued to haunt his innovation: exposure time remained very long (1 hrs.); images were one-of-a-kind (and could not be reproduced); images needed to be shifted to be perceived appropriately; health hazard from poisonous materials
Daguerre's and Nipce's innovations were widely celebrated and officially supported during the Second Empire; they fit nicely into Napoleon III's program of industrialization, entrepreneurship, and the sponsoring of scientific research: photography was in line with developing railroads and the telegraph system of the time
Both Nipce and Daguerre were awarded a state pension for their inventions (FF 4,000 and 60,000) in return for transferring their patents to the French state
Judged too important to be state-controlled, the patents were immediately transferred to the public domain in France and abroad (except for GB) so that everybody had the right to use and further develop Daguerreotypes
Some of these limitations are
visible in this detail of the Boulevard du Temple Daguerreotype
The Boulevard was one of the
busiest parts of Paris; still the streets seem to be deserted:
Passerby have become invisible
to due long exposure time; only stationary man who is having his shoes polished registered on plate > he stood still long enough to register on the plate
Pierre-Gustave de Lotbinire, The Propylaea at Athens, aquatint engraving from a Daguerreotype taken in
1839, from N. M. P. Lerebours, Excursions
daguerriennes (Paris: 1841-42)
Although the patent was made available for free to the public and Daguerre's process was published in widely circulating written descriptions (Historique et description du procd du Dagurreotype et du Diorama, also available in translation), Daguerreotypes remained prohibitively expensive: camera and equipment cost 400 fr., the better part of a month's living
Soon smaller and less expensive cameras appeared; Daguerreotypes caught on as commercial products
The first Daguerreotypes mostly depicted architecture because of the long exposure time
Problem remained how to mass market process: copies of Daguerreotypes, printed in conventional graphic arts techniques, offered a solution to dilemma
Between 1840 and 1844, 114 travel views were published in Paris as the series Excursions daguerriennes, based on Daguerreotypes taken in Europe, the Middle East and America Publisher N. M. P. Lerebours transferred subjects to copper plates by the aquatint process; figures traffic later added in
Canadian photographer Lotbinire furnished views from Greece, where he took in 1839 shots of the Acropolis
Resulting print of Propylaea is amazingly detailed, rich in nuance Lotbinire went on to travel to Syria and Egypt, where he met another photographer on assignment by Lerebours, Frdric Goupil-Fesquet, a Frenchman traveling in the Middle East together with the painter Horace Vernet
Together with them, Lotbinire sailed to Egypt to produce the first photographic documentary of Egypt Stylistically, many of his scenes still have overtones of Romantic art
Baron Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gros, Rue de l'observatoire, Bogat, Columbia, 1842, Daguerreotype Gros was the French charg d'affaires in Bogat, Columbia A growing number of individuals (usually from an affluent background) used Daguerreotypes as a means to bring views of foreign lands to Europe
Hermann Biow, Alexander von Humboldt, 1847,
Daguerreotype
By the end of 1840, three technical advances improved Daguerreotypes: improved lenses, light sensitivity of plates was increased, tones of Daguerreotypes were enhanced by gilding These innovations made Daguerreotype portraits a more viable possibility, as exposure time was shortened Soon thereafter, commercial portrait studios opened everywhere in the western world All types of people posed before the camera; here: portrait of the internationally famous German natural scientist and explorer von Humboldt, who posed for the Hamburg photographer Biow, famous for his large-size Daguerreotypes of celebrities
Albert Sands Southworth & Josiah Johnson
Hawes, Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, 1851, Daguerreotype
America adopted the Daguerreotype with great enthusiasm In the fall of 1839, the Frenchman Franois Gouraud came to America with Daguerreotypes by Daguerre, superior in quality to the work of American photographic pioneers Morse and Draper; showed these works in New York, Boston, and Providence Production figures of Daguerreotypes soon assumed astronomical heights: in the state of MA alone, 403,626 Daguerreotypes had been taken in the year ending June 1, 1955 (N.Y.: 300 to 1,000 Daguerreotypes/day)
Southworth & Hawes were both
American pupils of Gouraud, both came from Boston
Advertisement read: "One of the
partners is a practicing Artist, as we never employ Operators; customers receive out personal attention"
Departure from conventional stiffness
of posed in portrait photography
Example: Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of
the Massachusetts Supreme Court
Rugged, uncompromising features
stressed by illumination from the side
Antoine Claudet, Self-Portrait with
His Son Francis, 1853, stereoscopic
Daguerreotype
Claudet was the leading portrait
Daguerreotypist in England
He had learned the process
directly from Daguerre
Pioneer of stereoscopic
Daguerreotypes
Required a stereoscope that
enabled the viewer to perceive the scene three-dimensionally
John Edwin Mayall, The Crystal Palace,
London, During the Great Exhibition of the
Works of Industry of all Nations, 1851,
Daguerreotype
The second half of the 19th century was age of the great world fairs, in which European nation states showcased their accomplishments in art, industry, and science (connection between technological and social advancement); the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London (1851) set the precedent 6 million visitors, John Praxton's glass architecture widely celebrated
Mayall produced a series of oversized plates of the event (10 x 13 inches), thirty one of which were published (as prints) in Tallis's History and Description of the Crystal Palace and the Exhibition of the World's Industry
Charles Fontayne & William Southgate Porter, Cincinnati, 1848, Daguerreotype
Although by far the greatest quantities of Daguerreotypes were portraits, views of architecture and cities continued to occupy the attention of early photographers Fontayne and Southgate Powers photographed three miles of the Cincinnati riverfront on eight whole plates in 1848 The Daguerrotypes were then framed end to end to form a richly detailed panorama over five feet long
George N. Bernnard, Burning Mills, Oswego, N. Y., 1853, Daguerreotype
Because its exposure time continued to be long, Daguerreotypes did not lend themselves very well to for news reporting or the capturing of current events Bernard attempted here to capture a lakeside granary fire in New York Long exposure time bestows supernatural feeling to composition By the mid-1850s, Daguerrotypes faded into oblivion, as they were superseded my more advanced photographic technologies Too many drawbacks: unique copies, fragile (needed to be kept under glass), bulky equipment, very expensive