realism in 19th century photography

PHOTOGRAPHY19th Century AP Art History

“The photograph was the ultimate response to a social and cultural appetite for a more accurate …

representation of reality, a need that had its origins in the Renaissance”

- Naomi Rosenblum, A World History of Photography

TEDed History of Photography

Camera Obscura

Invented in 11th century by Alhazen in Persia

Used by Vermeer

Inverted image projected onto a surface.

Document events or traditional fine art themes portraiture, still life and landscape.

Changed over time

What does this remind you of

(Painting?)

Early Themes

Antoine François Claudet, The Geography Lesson, 1850

The Artist’s Studio, Louis-Daguerre, daguerrotype, 6.5” x 8.5”, 1837.

Still life photo inspired by vanitas still life paintings…

Daguerre painted stage sets and illusionistic scenery for The Diorama, a popular visual entertainment in Paris.

Louis Jacques Daguerre

Louis Daguerre, Boulevard du Temple, 1838(first known photo of a human being)

Portrait of Louis Daguerre, 1829

Photograph laterally reversed and printed onto a metal plate.

The Daguerreotype

Early Daguerrotype Camera

Talbot’s initial experiments – photograms or, what he called

‘Photogenic Drawings’

Talbot’s Photograms (Callotypes)

William Henry Fox Talbot, Latticed Window at Lacock Abbey, 1835

Window, 2012

Callotype Advantage: a negative for sharing multiple copies

http://youtu.be/Mh42xZQL6-k

Nadar: Artist, Balloonist, Photographer

• French caricaturist & portrait photographer

• First aerial photos

• Romantic artist: heroes Delacroix, Dumas & Hugo

• Friends with Baudelaire, Pierrot

Portrait of Charles Baudelaire, Nadar, 1863

French poet and art critic; rejected Romanticism; believed man inherently evil.

Baudelaire credited with term “modernite” - fleeting ephemeral experiences of urban life and duty of artist to capture those moments.

Forehead often highlighted

Controlled camera angles, often left one side of face in shadow (Baroque?!)

Pierrot, 1855, silver colloidal print by Nadar

• Captured personality of laughing mime

• Saw mime Pierrot as essence of modern artist: theatrical, humorous, inventive

• New method quicker than daguerrotype

Muybridge – 1st High Speed Photo

http://youtu.be/FYKZif9ooxs

Social Realism & PhotoJournalism

Mathew Brady, Civil War photographer…generals, battlefields, etc.

Tenement Interior in Poverty Gap, an English Coal Heaver’s Home, Jacob Riis, 1889. Published study in NY called How the Other Half Lives

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZl4KXsaKVE

1848-1860s - Economy• Industrial Revolution

– conclusion of Napoleonic Wars – trains – transport raw materials to factories in city

• Three class system– capitalists --> centralized economic control – laborers--> poor education & living conditions – middle class --> “laissez-faire”

Exploring human evolution & social equality in Realism

• political context: Marxism• Communist Manifesto (c. 1850)

all history was history of class struggles determined by humanity’s relationship to material wealth

• Darwin: theory of evolution

• Comte: positivism…all knowledge comes from tested scientific proof

Role of Artist in Culture

– role of artist:

• no longer to simply reveal beautiful & sublime

• aimed to tell the truth

• not beholden to higher, idealized reality (i.e., God)

– subjects:

• ordinary events and objects

• working class & broad panorama of society

• psychological motivation of characters