Encyclopedic Knowledge
Charcot demonstrating his patient's hysteria |
Positivism supported the 19th century belief in photographic objectivity |
Positivism = popular philosophical approach during 19th century that proposed that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge and that all things are ultimately measurable |
J.F.A. Claudet. The Geography Lesson. 1851. Stereoscopic daguerreotype.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
“What an educational revolution is here… Why our Tommys and Harrys will know the world’s surface as well as a circumnavigator…What a stock of knowledge our Tommys and Harrys will begin life with! Perhaps in ten years or so the question will be seriously discussed… whether it will be any use to travel now that you can send out your artist to bring home Egypt in his carpetbag to amuse the drawing room with.” – 1858 issue of The Athenaeum |
Maxime Du Camp. The Colossus
of Abu-Simbel, Nubia. 1850. Salted Paper Print.
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Along_the_Nile/1.L.htm
"I had realized upon my previous travels that I wasted much valuable time trying to draw buildings and scenery I did not care to forget. I drew slowly and not very correctly... I felt that I needed an instrument of precision to record my impressions if I was to reproduce them accurately." - Maxime Du Camp |
Maxime Du Camp. The Colossus
of Abu-Simbel, Nubia. 1850.
Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1982.
Francis Frith. The Sphinx and
the Great Pyramid Geezah. 1858. Albumen print.
http://www.shafe.co.uk/crystal/images/lshafe/Frith_The_Great_Pyramid_and_the_Great_Sphinx_1858.jpg
Mechanical Photography = a verbatim style of photography which featured maximum detail and sharpness |
Francis Frith. Great Pyramids. 1862. |
Frith's trademark "mechanical picturesque" approach: |
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Juxtapose
human figures with giant monuments |
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Dense detail |
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Sense of
mass and scale |
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Avoided
expressive or dramatic effects |
Francis Frith. The Pyramids
of Dahshur, Egypt. 1858.
Rosenblum,
Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
Maxime Du Camp. View of Nile ruins. 1850. |
Bisson Brothers. The Garden (Swiss Alps).
1860. |
Bisson Brothers. Valley of Chamonix seen from Le Chapeau. 1860.
Missions Heliographiques = formed in 1851 by the French government to record France's important monuments
Gustave Le Gray. The Ramparts of Carcassonne. 1851. Salted Paper Print from Calotype negative.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2005.100.34
Henri Le Secq. Amiens Cathedral. c. 1852. Salted paper print from waxed negative.
Gustave Le Gray. Le Pont Du Garde. 1851. Salted paper print.
http://www.allartnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Gustave-Le-Gray-1820-1884-Le-Pont-du-Gard.jpg
19th Century Science and the Photograph |
Southworth and Hawes. Early Operation Using Ether for Anesthesia. 1847. Daguerreotype. |
“It is to science…that photography, the child of science, renders, and will unceasingly render, the most valuable aid. …Photography is never imaginative, and is never in any danger of arranging its records by the light of a pre-conceived theory.” – Robert Cecil, British Prime Minister |
Ways in
which photography met 19th century science's needs: |
William Pratt. Edgar Allan Poe. 1849. Ambrotype |
Used to document and preserve visual data |
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Used for identification purposes |
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Assumed to be "truthful," used as evidence of the "real" |
The Scientific Portrait |
Anonymous. Spurzheim’s Phrenological Head from Phrenology or the Doctrine of Mental Phenomenon. 1832. |
Phrenology = the study of the shape and physical features of the skull and head that is based on the belief that these features can determine character and personality traits |
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Physiognomy = the study of facial characterisitcs based on the belief that these features can determine character and personality traits |
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Francis Galton. Violent Criminals Compositie. 1885.
Alphonse Bertillon. From Indentification Anthropometrique. 1893.
Bolton, Richard ed. The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1993.
Unknown Photographer. Twelve Boston Physicians and Their Composite Portrait. c. 1894.
Orwell, Miles. American Photography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Francis Galton. The Jewish Type. 1883.
Bolton, Richard ed. The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1993.
Faces and Races. no date.
http://students.washington.edu/karamck/gallery2.shtml
Time cover. The New Face of America. Fall 1993 special issue.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
The Other = refers to that which is 'other' than the concept being considered. The term often means a person other than oneself, and is often capitalised. The Other is singled out as different. |
J.E. Whitney Studio. Cut Nose. 1862. Carte-de-visite.
caption: Cut Nose: Who in the Massacre of 1862, in Minnesota, murdered 18 Women and Children and 5 Men. |
