The Second Invention of
Photography
Daguerreotype
Samuel F. B. Morse, Portrait of a Young Man, 1840
s
Theodore Maurisset La Daguerreotypomanie 1840
Unknown Photographer, 1843
Robert Cornelius, Seated Couple, 1840
“Were you ever Daguerrotyped, O immortal man? And in your
zeal not to blur the image, did you keep every finger in its
place with such energy that your hands became clenched as
for fight or despair, and in your resolution to keep your face
still, did you feel every muscle becoming every moment more
rigid: the brows contracted into a frown, and the eyes fixed as
they are fixed in a fit, in madness, or in death; and when at
last you are relieved of your dismal duties, did you find the
curtain drawn perfectly, and the coat perfectly, and the hands
true, clenched for combat, and the shape of the face and
head? But unhappily the total expression escaped from the
face and you held the portrait of a mask instead of a man.”
-Ralph Waldo Emmerson
Frances Benjamin Johnston
c. 1850
“By the end of the
century, for the first
time in history, even
the poor man knew
what his ancestors
had looked like.”
– John Szarkowski
Photographer
Unknown, California
Miner,1850
Samuel J. Miller
Portrait of Frederick Douglas
1852
Unknown photographer, 1850
George N. Barnard, Burning of Oswego Mills, July 5, 1853
Photographer Unknown, General Wool and Staff, Calle Real, Saltino, Mexico, 1847
Photographer Unknown,
General Wool and Staff, Calle
Real, Saltino, Mexico, 1847
Artist Unknown, Death of Major
Ringgold of the Flying Artillery,
at the Battle of Palo-Alto, 1846
Noel Lerebours, Portail de Notre Dame de Paris from
Daguerrian Excursions, Showing the World’s Most Remarkable
Views and Monuments, 1840-44
Calotype
William Henry Fox Talbot, An Oak Tree in Winter, 1842-43
Photographer Unknown, Panorama showing Talbot’s Reading establishment, 1845
Henry Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature, 1844
William Henry Fox Talbot, Insect Wings, as seen in a Solar Microscope, 1840
William Henry Fox Talbot, The Haystack, 1844
William Henry Fox Talbot, Articles of China, from The Pencil of Nature, 1844
Anna Atkins
Cyanotype Process
Anna Atkins
Asperococcus
echinatus
1850
Anna Atkins
Dictyota dichotoma
1850
Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, 1843
“Art-Science”
Anna Atkins
Laminaria bulbosa
1850
Is Photography Art?
“The daguerreotype is a useless means of
making portraits…mathematical verisimilitude
and lifeless precision do not do justice to a
portrait, for which one needs expression and
life; these can only be conveyed by the
animating strength of talent and thought of an
individual- no machine can do this.”
-Review of exhibition of daguerreotypes at the
Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia, 1839
Artist Unknown, The Art of the Future, 1859
“The artist, even in photography,
must go beyond discovery and
the knowledge of facts. He must
create and invent truths, and
produce new development of
facts.”
Albert Sands
Southworth
Self Portrait
1848
Vermeer 1665-66
Monet 1886
Picasso 1932
DeKooning 1952