Critical Studies
2. The Early Language of Photography
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2.1 Dominique Francois Arago championed the French photographic entrepreneur Louis Daguerre when he sought financial payment for revealing the daguerrotype method to the French public. Arago's "Report of the Commision of the Chamber of Deputies" (July 3rd 1839) offers an interesting insight into the contemporary uses to which photography could be applied.
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2.2 While Daguerre is credited with the invention of photography, Jeffrey Batchen in his book "Burning with Desire"(1997) describes how world wide there were many experimental chemists with a potential working processes for photography.
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2.3 Descriptions of the daguerrotypeist as an artist are uncommon. The American author Nathaniel Hawthorne began his fictional work "The House of Seven Gables" (1851) eleven years after the revelation of Daguerre's process. Hawthorne offers a unique perspective on the publics perception of the photographer in the 1840's, in the novel "the artist" is also a practitioner of animal magentism.
Hawthorne N. The House of Seven Gables (1851) (Ohio State University Press, 1965) ( London, Penguin Classics. 1981). -
2.4 In contrast Julia Margaret Cameron's "Annals from My Glass House" (1874), is a real account of the difficulties and pleasures of the nineteenth century international exhibition portrait photographer.
Cameron J.M Annals of my Glass House (London, 1874) see also (Heron & Williams 1984) pp.8-13. -
2.5 The English writer John Berger's short essay "Painting or Photography" (1963) considers whether painters and photographers are united by a similar need to describe the world?
Berger J. Painting or Photography (The Photographic Journal, June 1963, pp182-3.). -
2.6 The American writer Peter Galassi, and then Head of the Photography Department at the Museum of Modern Art N.Y. published a provocative essay to accompany an exhibition he curated "Before Photography" (1981). Galassi through comparison demonstrates the early nineteenth century dialectic between between painting and the new medium of photography.
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2.7 Charles Baudelaire (1821 -1867) was a vociferous critic of photography and in his essay "The Modern Public and Photography" (1859) he describes why he thought that photography might usurp the role of the painter.
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See also
Goldberg V. Photography in Print (Albuquerque; University of New Mexico Press, 1981).
Heron L & Williams V. (eds) Women Writing on Photography from the 1850's to the Present (London NY; IB Taurius, 1996).
Trachtenberg A. Collected Essays on Photography (NY; Leete's Island Books, 1980).