Gardner’s Art Through the Ages

Chapter 28
Europe and America,
1800 to 1870

1
 Photography

• Experiments in photography go back to the 1600’s when

the camera obscura was used so that artists could render
accurate copies of the scene before them.
• Photogram: an image made by placing objects on photo-
sensitive paper and exposing them to light to produce a
silhouette.
• Daguerrotype: Named after Louis Daguerre,
characterized by a shiny surface, meticulous finish and
clarity of detail. Have no negative.
• Calotype: Developed by William Talbot, characterized by
grainy quality. Had both a positive and a negative image.

2
View from the Window at Le Gras, the first successful permanent photograph created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826, Saint-
Loup-de-Varennes. Captured on 20 × 25 cm oil-treated bitumen. Due to the 8-hour exposure, the buildings are
illuminated by the sun from both right and left.
LOUIS-JACQUES-MANDÉ DAGUERRE, First Daguerrotype—Man Having His Shoes Shined
 •Still life inspired by painted still
lives, like vanitas paintings.
•Variety of textures: fabric, wicker,
plaster, framed print, etc.
•New art form proclaimed capturing
older art forms.
•Daguerrotypes have a shiny surface
with sharp detail.

LOUIS-JACQUES-MANDÉ DAGUERRE, Still Life in Studio, 1837. 6 1/4” x 8 1/4”. Daguerreotype. Collection
Société Française de Photographie, Paris.
5
Hippolyte Bayard created the first fake photograph
•Hawes and Southworth, a painter and
a pharmacist, recorded an early
operation from the gallery.
•Viewer is meant to feel like a medical
student.
•Daguerrotypes required the person
being photographed to stay motionless
for a long time.

JOSIAH JOHNSON HAWES and ALBERT SANDS SOUTHWORTH, Early Operation under Ether, Massachusetts
General Hospital, ca. 1847. Daguerreotype. Massachusetts General Hospital Archives and Special Collections,
Boston. 7
•Nadar photographed many important
people in France, including Daumier,
Delacroix, Courvet and the
Impressionist Edouard Manet.
•Portrait of Delacroix shows the artist
at the height of his career.
•Gesture and expression seem to
reveal something of his personality.

NADAR, Eugène Delacroix, ca. 1855.

Modern print, 8 1/2”x 6 2/3” from original
negative in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
8
NADAR, Eugène Delacroix, ca. 1855. HONORÉ DAUMIER, Nadar Raising Photography to the
Modern print, 8 1/2”x 6 2/3” from original Height of Art, 1862. Lithograph, 10 3/4” x 8 3/4”. Museum of
negative in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Fine Arts, Boston.
•Photographers and painters often
collaborated, as seen in Draped
Model.
•Although Delacroix produced a
permanent image of the posed
nude model, the photographer
attempted to create a mood
through lighting and drapery.

Eugene Durieu and Eugene Delacroix, Draped Model,

1854, Albumen Print
 JEAN-AUGUSTE
INGRES, Valpincon
Bather, 1808,
Louvre, Paris

Man Ray, pioneer of

Surrealism quotes Ingres.
Tension between
objectification and
appreciation of the female
form.
MAN RAY, The Violin of Ingres,
1924
How does Delacroix both reference and ignore the
photograph of his model in “Odalisque?”
•Portrait photographer who often
posed her sitters as characters from
literary works.
•Pre-Raphaelite inspiration.
•Hazy effect due to use of a lens
with a short focal length that only
allowed a small area of the
photograph to be in focus.
•Hazy quality gives her portraits a
dreamlike effect.

JULIA MARGARET CAMERON,

Ophelia, Study no. 2, 1867. Albumen
print, 1' 1" x 10 2/3". George Eastman
House, Rochester

JULIA MARGARET CAMERON, I

Wait. Albumen print, 1' 1" x 10 2/3".
13
•Image eloquently captures the war's toll of
death and destruction after the Battle of
Gettysburg, which took place from July 1
to July 3, 1863.
•Although Gardner's caption identifies the
men in the photograph as "rebels
represented...without shoes," they are
probably Union dead.
•Unromanticized, depicts true horror of
war.
•Power of the camera’s documentary power
realized during the Civil War.

TIMOTHY O’SULLIVAN, A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863. Negative by Timothy
O’Sullivan. Original print by ALEXANDER GARDNER, 6 3/4" x 8 3/4". New York Public Library (Astor, Lenox
and Tilden Foundations, Rare Books and Manuscript Division), New York.

14
Alexander Gardner used the young dead soldier as a movable prop to set up
dramatic war photos.
MATTHEW BRADY, Cooper Union Portrait, 1860 and Robert E. Lee, 1865
•Dr. Samuel Gross, lecturing
while performing an
operation on a patient.
•Anesthesiologist applying
chloroform in a gauze to the
patient’s unseen head.
•Gross dressed in business
suit with bloodstained hands.
• Gross rendered with
Rembrandt-like use of light,
heightens intensity of gaze,
focal point is his brain.
•Eakins took photographs of
Gross, who had no time to
pose for paintings.

THOMAS EAKINS, The Gross Clinic,

1875. Oil on canvas, 8’ x 6’ 6”.
Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Philadelphia.
17
Eakins, “Pole Vaulter: Multiple Exposure Photograph of George Reynolds,” 1884-85. Eakins was a pioneer
in the new technique of photography. Anticipating the invention of the movie camera, he, with Eadweard
Muybridge, was first to take rapid, multiple exposures.
•Photography now advanced enough
that it can capture moments the human
eye cannot.
•Cameras snap photos at evenly placed
points along a track, giving the effect
of things happening in sequences.
•These motion studies bridge the gap
between still photography and movies.
•Used a device called a zoopraxiscope.

EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, Horse Galloping, 1878. Collotype print, 9” x 12”. George Eastman
House, Rochester, New York.
19
APAH Exam, 2004: The work on the left is an oil painting while
the work on the right is in which of the following media?
a) Lithograph b) Daguerrotype c) Aquatint d) Silk Screen
In the work on the left, the artist used light to
a) Indicate the time of day
b) Dramatically highlight the doctor and operation
c) Evenly record the details of the operating room
d) Soften the harshness of the gory scene

The viewpoint of both works is primarily that of

a) An observer
b) The patient
c) The chief surgeon
d) The anesthesiologist
•The stereopticon became a
popular fad around 1850.
•After Queen Victoria took a
fancy to the stereoscope at the
Crystal Palace Exposition in
1851, stereo viewing became all
the rage in Britain.
•Works on the principle that the
right and left eyes see a slightly
different version of the same
scene and that it is the merging of
these two images that produces
the perception of depth.
 2001 AP Art History Exam Question
The photograph on the left is by Nadar. The painting on the right is by Ingres.
Discuss specific ways in which Ingres’ painting both reflects and ignores the newer
medium of photography, as represented in Nadar’s photograph on the left.

Nadar, Sarah Bernhardt

Ingres, Comtesse d’Haussonville
To earn a 4, you had to discuss:
•At least one way Ingres’ painting displays elements of
traditional painting techniques; and
•At least one way Ingres’ painting reflects an awareness of
photography.
Ways in which Nadar’s photograph and Ingres’ painting are
similar:

Ways in which Nadar’s photograph and Ingres’ painting are different: