Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol [70]
Beardsley, “Salome,” 1892, Princeton University Library. Beardsley used Art Nouveau’s sinuous, curving lines based on plant forms.
BIRTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY
In the early nineteenth century scientific discoveries in optics and chemistry converged to produce a new art form: photography. In 1826 French chemist Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) made the first surviving photographic image, a view of the courtyard outside his home. To obtain the hazy image, Niépce exposed a polished pewter plate for eight hours.
His collaborator, Louis-J.-M. Daguerre (1789 — 1851), invented a more practical process of photography in 1837. His first picture, “Still Life,” was a brilliantly detailed view of a corner of his studio, exposed for 10 to 15 minutes. In 1839 Daguerre inadvertently took the earliest known photograph of a human being. His picture of a Parisian boulevard known to have been crowded with rushing pedestrians is eerily empty of life, except for a man having his shoes shined — the only human being who stood still long enough for his image to register during the long exposure.
An Englishman, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77), further improved the process of photography with his invention of calotypes, or the photo negative, announced in 1839. He had begun experimenting by pressing leaves, feathers, and pieces of lace against prepared paper that was exposed to sunlight. His later prints of projected images were blurred compared to the sharp daguerreotypes, but were achieved with paper negatives and paper prints.
Niépce, “View from His Window at Gras,” 1826, Gernsheim Collection, University of Texas at Austin. This is the first surviving photograph, exposed for eight hours.
Other advances soon followed. In 1851 a process called wet-plate reduced exposure time to seconds and produced prints almost as precise as Daguerre’s. Then the tintype was invented, with an image on a thin metal plate instead of delicate glass. Next the dry-plate liberated the photographer from dashing into the darkroom immediately. Not only would the image keep longer before developing, the speed of exposure was so fast the photographer no longer needed a tripod. By 1858, instant photography replaced the daguerreotype. In the 1880s, portable hand-held cameras and roll film took over.
Daguerre, “A Portrait of Charles L. Smith,” 1843, International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. Doguerre invented a practical method of photography.
Fox Talbot, “Sailing Craft,” c. 1844, Science Museum, London. Fox Talbot developed paper negatives and prints.
TYPES OF POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY
TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY. Professional photographers swarmed to wayward locales to document far-off wonders and feed the public’s appetite for the exotic. Suddenly the pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt, Old Faithful erupting, Niagara Falls, and the Grand Canyon were accessible to armchair travelers. These first mobile shutterbugs surmounted formidable difficulties, lugging heavy equipment and fragile plates up Alpine peaks, working under broiling sun, and then in the stifling gloom of portable darkrooms. Blackened fingers, clothes corroded by silver nitrate, and often great physical danger could not daunt the early pioneers of photography.
O’Sullivan, “Canyon de Chelly, Arizona,” 1867, International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester NY. Travel photographs of the American West convinced Eastern legislators to establish the first national parks.
WAR PHOTOGRAPHY AND MATTHEW BRADY. In more than 7,000 negatives, Matthew Brady ( 1823-96) brought home the horrors of the Civil War. “A spirit in my feet said go, and I went,” he explained. In addition to his spirit, he had to take along a wagonload of equipment. Troops called his darkroom on wheels the “Whatsit” wagon. It often became the target of enemy fire as Brady crouched inside processing glass plates while battles raged around him. Since it took three minutes to make an impression on a plate, Brady was confined to pictures