After reading the lectures and supplemental readings, discuss how manipulating a scene was an acceptable practice during the Crimean War and Civil War in a two paragraph essay. It’s important to discuss the goal and or desired effect. Be sure to discuss one manipulated photo from each war to demonstrate your understanding.

Each paragraph should consist of 5 to 6 sentences. Examples from lecture and supplemental readings should be made to demonstrate understanding. Answers that appear to meet the length requirement but do not say something of substance as in the example of short sentences meant to meet the quota will lose points.

Use Parenthetical References

First and foremost, please do not perform outside research. You have everything you need in the lectures. As this is a Zero Text Cost class, you should not have to seek information outside of the contents of this course.

All essays must contain parenthetical references at the end of each sentence explaining where the information was found (Baudelaire, 99). It is not necessary to create endnotes or a works cited section.

Examples of what to do:

These examples come from an upcoming essay written by Susan Sontag. This is how a direct quote should be handled from an external reading or from the module lecture:

According to Sontag, “to photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge-and, therefore, like power” (Sontag 1).

Sontag hints at the notion that one no longer needs to travel to visit exotic places. All one need do is buy a picture of the place instead (DeAngelis Module 7).

When you paraphrase or take the info and write it in your own words, you still need to cite. This is how paraphrasing should be handled:

Many believe that when one takes a picture, they are collecting pieces of the world (Sontag 1).

5. Lecture

Why Did the Civil War Begin?

Existing free states wanted new territories to become “free states.” Existing slave states wanted new territories to become “slave states.” The power of government was called into question over this dilemma.

Abraham Lincoln pledged to keep slavery out of the new territories that had not yet become states. Some of the slave states in the deep South seceded. The slave states that withdrew banded together and formed a new nation. This new nation, the Confederate States of America, would not be recognized by the incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people. They thought it would discredit democracy and perhaps fragment the UNITED States into smaller squabbling states.

What Event Triggered the War?

In Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Confederates claimed the US fortress as their own by firing upon the fortress and forcing it to surrender. Lincoln called out the militia to suppress this insurrection against the government. The goal of the “North” also known as the “Union” was to destroy the “Old South” and the institution of slavery. This event was the beginning of the Civil War.

Lost letters post card pix

Did you know?

Did you know there is a “Dead Letter Office” department at the United States Post Office? That’s where all of the Civil War soldier portrait photos went when they could not be delivered to the mail recipient.

Photo Collage of Soldier Photographs at United States Post Office
Dead Letter Office, 1861, Unknown Photographers

At the end of the Civil War, roughly 4.5 million undelivered letters were eventually sent to the Dead Letter Office. Some soldier families had to relocate in war time and mail forward was not an option.

Seeing is Equal to Knowing

Significance of The Civil War

The Civil War was significant for many, many important reasons. One of these reasons is that it was a war fought on our own soil. The Civil War pitted neighbor against neighbor, family against family, and countryman against countryman.

Photo of photojournalist

Photojournalism was born out of the desire for people who wanted pictures of their soldier kin as well as visual depictions of battles fought during the Civil War. People wanted to know how loved ones endured and/or lost their lives. Capturing such events was the future of photography, and photojournalism was born out of the desire to know, and the desire to view pictorial evidence of current events, beginning with the Civil War.

Container of Truth and Carrier of Cultural Values

The more people saw, the more knowledge they possessed about the world. Photography was in a very unique position to fulfill this desire. The premise of the photograph as a container of truth and carrier of cultural values was at last established and accepted.

Communication and transportation advances around the time of the Civil War brought people closer together and curiosity grew. People believed that the photograph was the container of truth and carrier of cultural values.

The First Current Event Photograph is the First Catastrophe Photograph

A cost-effective way to get news photographs to large audiences was not available. If a photographer wanted to get the shot, they would need to be on the site of the event or catastrophe at the time it was occurring. A current event or catastrophe photo would convey what a person would have seen if they were there themselves watching the action as it unfolded. Truth and accuracy were best served by showing the wholeness of the scene. Photographers believed that broad views were best because they revealed the most visual information.

Lithograph of a view of the conflagration of the city of Hamburg.
From the front page of the Illustrated London News, May 14, 1842

Perhaps ideas about “firsts” began with the incinerated ruins of Hamburg, Germany, after the great fire of 1842. It is technically the first current event photo ever taken.

Photographers needed to be at the scene BUT could not capture the action of the fire while it was raging unless the wind was blowing away from the burning structures. So they had to focus on artifacts instead. At the time, photographs of Hamburg in ruins were regarded as dynamic, factual, and timely. The above depiction of the city of Hamburg burning is an illustration made from a photo published in the London News, 1842. During this time, there was no way to publish actual photographs in newspapers. An artist need to make a drawing of the photograph in order to publish it.

George N. Barnard, Fire at the Ames Mill, Oswego, NY, 1853

More than a decade later, George Barnard arrived to the scene while the fire was raging. He took this photo of the burning Ames Mill in Oswego, NY, in 1853. Again, Barnard was able to capture one of the first catastrophes while it was actually taking place.

Unknown Photographer, General Wool on Horseback
(at Center), 1847, Yale University.

Mexican War

Some of the first “war” pictures were circulated of a general on horseback in Saltillo, Mexico, during the Mexican War, 1846-48. While the photograph was not exactly a war scene per se, it was still significant for its time. General Wool joined the US army to fight in the War of 1812. He also chose to serve in the Mexican War, 1846-1848.

Roger Fenton, A Quiet Day at the Mortar Battery, 1855. Salted paper print.

Roger Fenton and The Crimean War

The Crimean War began in 1853 and was the second war photographed. Europeans were interested in seeing pictures. Manchester Publishing was interested in selling those photographs to aristocrats and sent Roger Fenton to photograph it. He was experienced in documentary work but never took pictures of death, human suffering, and bloody battles.

Do Not Confuse the Crimean War with the Civil War: A Few Facts on the Crimean War

Crimea is in the Ukraine. The Crimean War, took place between October 1853–February 1856 and was a war fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, with support from January 1855 by the army of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war arose from the conflict of great powers in the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Another major factor was the dispute between Russia and France over the privileges of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in the holy places in Palestine. Credit: Britannica/ Crimean WarLinks to an external site.

Roger Fenton, Self-Portrait, 1852

As Fenton’s financial backers wanted morally instructive and uplifting pictures that would reinforce the notion of war propaganda, he made staged portraits of officers and generals on horseback in full regalia. Fenton complained that ordinary soldiers pestered him to take pictures to send back home.

Roger Fenton, Injured Zouave, Crimea, 1855

Fenton never photographed a dead body. Instead his photographs showed that getting wounded was not so bad because a heroic nurse would be there to dress the wound as demonstrated in the photograph titled Injured Zouave.

Some considered these images troubling because they were not truthful and did not depict the reality and horror of war.

The Valley of Death

The area where so many British met their death in the Crimean War was named the Valley of Death. It was a desolate lowland that lived up to its Biblical name. On October 25, 1854, the Russian artillery was in a strong position and fired on a British cavalry brigade whose attack orders had been confused through the chain of command. The British Light Brigade incurred heavy, heavy losses.

Fenton’s Valley of the Shadow of Death, 1855

This exact photograph was on exhibit in 1855. When Fenton arrived in Crimea, it was months after the event and after Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote the first draft of his poem below. He was aware of the national sentiment surrounding the Valley when he left Britain. He made two photos of this site, the first version had very few cannon balls and reflected the actual scene as he came upon it, but the second had many canon balls strewn across the landscape (that was the one that became famous of course). He manipulated the scene by adding cannon balls to suggest that the event was current and had just taken place. It is important to remember that during this time, society was learning to accept photographs as the custodians of reality AND for some manipulating scenes was troubling.

It was the power of the photograph that propelled the Tennyson poem as well as the complex sentiment felt by the British about the war.

Alfred Lord Tennyson said “theirs not to make reply, theirs
not to reason why, theirs but to do or die, into the
Valley of Death rode the six hundred.”

Tennyson wrote this poem about this specific event:

The Charge of the Light Brigade

I

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

Someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

III

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

IV

Flashed all their sabres bare,

Flashed as they turned in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre stroke

Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

V

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

VI

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

Excerpt Credit: Poetry Foundation TennysonLinks to an external site.

James Robertson, Interior of the Redan, June 1855, Salted paper print

James Robertson and Felice Beato

Robertson and Beato’s intentions were different from Fenton. They photographed landscape ruins of the aftermath of the Crimean War. But the war was over and the events were no longer current, so people lost interest in seeing them depicted in the London Press. Beato’s works were the first in history to show descriptive visions of the horror and unglamorous side of war. Critics described Robertson and Beato’s works as truthful and cold.

Felice Beato, The Execution of Mutineers, Indian Mutiny, 1858
The Indian Mutiny was a rebellion against British rule in India.

Lessons Learned

Fenton, Robertson, and Beato taught us that the effectiveness and profitability of war images depend on immediacy as in immediately getting the picture to the intended audience. Why? Because once the conflict ended, it was no longer current and people lost interest.

Brady upon his return from the
first battle of Bull Run

Civil War Photographer Matthew Brady: One of the First Renowned American Photographers

When the Civil War began, Matthew Brady mobilized his staff, packed wagons with photo supplies, and created a mobile darkroom at some of the most important battle sites in U.S. history. In doing so, his battlefield photographs brought home the gruesome reality of what war was like to the general public. He and his crew captures thousands of photographs that ranged from portrait photos of general from both the North and the South to the horrific aftermath on the battlefield.

Matthew Brady, Courtesy Library of Congress

It’s important to note that these photos, which are still studied today took place in (almost) real time (or at least after the smoke cleared) on the actual battlefields. It is also important to note that many of the Civil War photos attributed to Brady were taken by his staff instead and, during this time, it was common practice to give the photographer that financed the trip or owned the studio the photo credit. The studio of Matthew Brady or rather Matthew Brady himself received the credit instead of the field photographers such as Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan.

Albert Berghaus, M. B. Brady’s Mew Photographic Gallery, Corner of Broadway
and Tenth Street, New York, from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1861.
Wood engraving. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Three months after the start of the Civil War, Matthew Brady, Timothy O’Sullivan, and a cameraman parked their photographic wagon on a bluff overlooking the Bull Run battlefield in Virginia. It was the first major land battle of the Civil War. The great Union victory turned into a calamitous retreat. Brady claimed he lost his views of the fight and also suffered from deteriorating eyesight. After this battle, he rarely went to the front lines to photograph.

Mathew Brady, Abraham Lincoln, 1860. Salted paper print
(carte-de-visite). Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Brady and his crews amassed 7000+ negatives. This collection, which focused on the notion of freedom, is considered one of the most complete volumes covering a major event to date. Brady’s approach supported traditional images of national identity, and this was something that was etched into America’s consciousness.

Many learned from the Civil War that war is long, hard, horrifically violent and yielded a high casualty count. When this war was over, no one wanted souvenir pictures.

The President and General McClellan on the Battle-field of Antietam,
Credit Given to Publisher Matthew Brady, 1961-62
(Photo actually taken by Photographer Alexander Gardner)

Mathew Brady, Soldiers on the Battlefield, 1862. Albumen silver print
by Alexander Gardner. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The ability to capture a moment in time has fascinated us ever since an image was first produced in 1839. First a novelty, then a powerful medium of information that carried emotion, photography and photojournalism came of age during the American Civil War. No other conflict had ever been recorded in such detail at least until the late 20th century. Nowhere else is this truer than at Antietam, the first battlefield photographed before the dead were buried.

It started with just a few, but by 1865 dozens of photographers were hauling glass plates and volatile chemicals across the war-torn countryside. Today, because of their paramount photographic works, we can still look into the faces of soldiers and visit the locations of tragic events.

Excerpt: nps.gov/history civil warLinks to an external site.

The Public Impression of Brady’s Civil War Photographs

In October, 1862, The New York Times wrote the following about Matthew Brady’s photographs of the dead at a battlefield in Antietam (Maryland):

“Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible
reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our
dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it.”

Matthew Brady and Abraham Lincoln

Please Read: How one Matthew Brady Photo may have helped Abe Lincoln win the Election. Link to article Brady and LincolnLinks to an external site.

Alexander Gardner, 1863

Alexander Gardner, Civil War Civilian Photographer

Gardner, a self-taught master of the wet-plate process, joined the staff of General George McClellan as a civilian photographer. He made the first battle pictures of the carnage at Antietam in September 1862. The first battle corpses removed the prohibition against picturing actual war dead. Prior to this, photographs of the dead were captured but not shared. The scenes of the first battle corpses were unromantic and no one ever saw anything like it. They put an end to the romantic notion of the glory of war that Roger Fenton captured (he never took a photo of a dead body). Broken, bloated, distorted, decomposed dead soldiers served as visceral proof that war is not glorious. They were only reproduced on six occasions in the illustrated press. Perhaps the reason is because they were just too disturbing and real.

Alexander Gardner at Antietam

“When war threatened the nation in the spring of 1861, thousands of soldiers flocked to Washington, D.C., to defend the capital. Photographers followed in their footsteps capturing camp scenes and portraits of untested, jubilant greenhorns in their new uniforms. It so happened that Alexander Gardner had just opened a new studio in the capital for the most notable photographer of his era – Mathew Brady. Gardner also took advantage of the coming storm to increase his business. All of the prior war photographs were taken in studios or tents. No one had produced images in the field.” For more, go to: nps.gov/Antietam/learnLinks to an external site.

Collectible Visible Reference or News Pictures?

Gardner was in charge of Brady’s Washington studio. With war imminent, he arranges for E & H.T. Anthony, the country’s biggest dealer in photographic goods, to print and distribute hero portrait photographs of officers and soldiers with the inscription “Brady’s Photographic Art Gallery.”

Brady’s published series called “Incidents of the War” carried the credit line “Photographed by Brady.” Due to the time between taking pictures and the publication of hand drawings of photographs, they were considered collectible visible reference rather than news pictures. Photographs were still not produced in newspapers because the technology was not there yet. Photographs were made available in public spaces however. The dissemination of current event photographs occurred long after the event was over so it was no longer of interest.

Alexander Gardner, Home of the Rebel Sharpshooter, Gettysburg, VA, 1863

Smoke, Danger, and Preparation and Manipulating Scenes

Photographs could not be taken while the battle was raging but rather after the fact due to smoke, danger, and time needed to prepare equipment. Perhaps this encouraged the manipulation scenes.

Gardner and his associates arrived at the battle of Gettysburg a few days later to photograph the bodies which were being moved and prepped for burial. Gardner constructed the photo Home of the Rebel Sharpshooter. He moved the body of a Confederate infantrymen forty yards, added a musket (rifle) to the scene which was nearby, and turned the dead man’s face towards the camera.

While this is indeed purposeful manipulation, it was a way to force the viewer (us!) to gaze directly into the tragedy of violence and premature death. The goal was not to enhance the scene or create a fraudulent message but rather to show the viewer the horror of war for the very first time. Photographs like this expanded the definition of photographic documentation and we consider the Civil War the birth of photojournalism. We tend not to blame the photographer for creating a false narrative since this was uncharted territory and no one knew how to show the viewer the shock they felt seeing this in person.

For some Americans, the Civil War photographs fulfilled the desire to know but when it was no longer a “current event,” people did not want to view these graphic images any longer.

 Photographic Truthfulness

The photographer depicted the experience of war by creating and inventing the act before the camera.

Photographer’s Studio

In the studio, the photographer’s job was to arrange the sitter for a specific effect. The resulting image was considered reality. Therefore, it can be suggested that the bounds of truthfulness should not change just because the photographer has left the studio for the battlefield. The boundaries of truthfulness are the same in both scenarios, aren’t they?

What is most interesting is that no one ever questioned Gardner’s right to set the scene on the battlefield by adding a musket and by moving the body. It was accepted as an accurate and complete representation of the situation. It was like a silent agreement between the viewer and the photographer and it gave the photographer the license to adjust situations to deliver a more complete sense of subject.

Isn’t this what the painters have been doing all along?

The painter paints his perception of the sitter and that does not mean that it is a true or actual depiction of the sitter.

Gardner’s Studio, Location: 7th and D, Washington, D.C.

Gardner Opens His Own Studio, Credited Individual Photographers, and Elevated the Medium of Photography

Gardener’s work at Antietam was shown at Brady’s New York gallery, written about in the newspapers, and reproduced in Harper’s Weekly. However, it was not identified as Gardner’s individual work because he did not have his own gallery, so the works were attributed to Brady, the man who hired him and sent him out into the field. It was insulting and frustrating to talented photographers and especially to the photographer who endured the hardship and danger in trying to take the photographs in the first place.

Gardner wanted independence from Brady and began his own studio in Washington D.C. in 1863. A Majority of Brady’s finest photographers went to work for Gardner who credited each of them individually for the pictures that were published.

The Status of the Photographer is Elevated

Individual credit helped to elevate the status of the photographer especially since it was their vision just like that of the painter and sculptor.

Cover of Gardner’s Sketch Book

Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War

Notice the phrase “sketch book.” Sketchbook implies an artistic and spontaneous reaction to selected subjects. His photographs provided a Northern, moralistic overview. He added words and phrases such as “devilish,” “distorted dead,” and “they paid with their life the price of their treason,” when referring to the Confederate side.

His photographs provide an emotional view of the war, with the battle of Gettysburg as its nucleus. His book was offered in limited edition and only 200 contained actual prints sold to an elite audience for $150.

Alexander Gardner, Execution of the Lincoln Conspirators, 1865

The First American Photographic Picture Story

Gardner also made portraits of Lincoln and prison studies of Lincoln’s assassination conspirators in an album in 1865. For their executions, Gardner set his camera on a roof overlooking the gallows and made a series of seven exposures. This sequence is considered the first American photographic narrative or picture story of an event that unfolds over actual time. This narrative took on the dual photographic role of picturing the news while acting as a kind of documentary. For more on this story, go to Lincoln Conspirators ExecutionLinks to an external site.

Timothy O’Sullivan, A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, VA 1863
Plate #36 in Gardner’s Sketchbook

Timothy O’Sullivan

O’Sullivan worked for Brady’s Washington studio under Gardner’s supervision before joining Gardner’s staff in 1862. His Civil War photographs have a sense of sadness about them. The photo above, A Harvest of Death, is one of the most iconic Civil War photographs of all.

His photos were level, straight on, using a maximum depth of field of view. He made a genteel distance from the subject discouraging the viewer from having a personal impression of a specific facet of the site. He called his process “selective focus” which forces the audience to focus on the subject matter rather than the analytical facts.

In the photo Harvest of Death, notice how the foreground and background are out of focus while the middle ground is in focus. The viewer’s attention tends to focus on the corpse at the center whose mouth is open in an apparent death-like scream.

Did You Know

Ever wonder why some soldiers in pictures appear without shoes? Why are there pockets inside out? During this time food, fresh water, and supplies were scarce. Some wore the same socks for months at a time. Dead bodies were often looted so that soldier’s could trade items for food and supplies.

When the war commenced, latrines were erected too close to rivers and other fresh water sources causing massive contamination. Many died of diarrhea and dysentery, and for a while this was the number one killer at least until they learned to boil water before drinking.

John Reekie, Burial Party, Cold Harbor, VA, 1865,
Plate #94 in Gardner’s Sketchbook

John Reekie

One of the last images in Gardner’s sketchbook is John Reekie’s, A Burial Party, Cold Harbor, Virginia, 1865. It depicts a group of freed slaves doing the grizzly job of gathering up remains of Union troops. Reekie focused on the foreground where a man sits next to five skulls, a detached leg with a boot set on top of decaying clothing, and a canteen set at the corner. The sketchbook provides a ring side view of this fratricidal horror show.

Burial Party Close Up

The photograph has been staged to contrast life and death. The canteen carries water which is a symbol of life while the skulls, detached leg, and decaying clothes are symbols of death. The photographer was clearly thinking of how to impress the horror of war on the viewer at home.

So How Were War Photographs Circulated?

Battlefield scenes were published in books and hung in public spaces. Drawing reproductions were published in newspapers. Carte-de-visites of Civil War soldiers were collected. Carte portraits of soldiers were popular during this time. They were not artistic but rather an attempt to preserve the life or likeness of the soldier that went off to war. Mailing of cartes cost two cents.

War is a Part of Life

Somewhere along the way we, as a civilization, have accepted war as part of life.

War photography does not authenticate history but rather it is history itself, especially today where photographers and satellites give us accurate and minute to minute views as they occur in real time. It seems clear to suggest that during this time the camera was not an impartial observer but rather a human guided tool used to make contrived and coded images open to interpretation.

6. Lecture

Napoleon III, Mayer & Pierson, Albumen Carte-de-visite

Photography: Is it Art or Industry?

There was an increase in the number of people making a living in photography. Perhaps this was the result of Talbot relaxing his patent restrictions and the invention of the wet-plate collodion process.

Photography was divided between amateurs and professionals and the gap between the two widened. Amateurs pursued personal inclinations and claimed the moral high ground of art, beauty, and truth.

Professionals were motivated by market forces to produce sellable objects. Professionals saw amateurs as elitists who ignored basic needs of people.

Photography: A handmaiden of art or an art unto itself?

Sir William Newton’s article “Upon Photography in an Artistic View,” 1853, brought to a boil the issues surrounding the purpose of photography. Questions surfaced that needed answers: “Was photography a handmaiden of art or an art unto itself?” “Was it a technical process?” “Was the purpose of photography to objectively reproduce what was before the camera?” Or, “was it controlled for artistic concerns?”

Some saw photographs as a threat to the position of high art. They believed photographers were failed artists who were mere slaves to reproduce the natural appearance of things and doubted whether the process could be manipulated to create works based on inner feelings and thought.

Nadar, Photo Charles Baudelaire, 1859

Charles Baudelaire

Baudelaire was a French Symbolist and poet who had his picture taken many times but claimed to dislike the process as well as the medium. He was known for verbally attacking the public’s lack of imagination which took the position that photography failed to critically address the world in which it functions. He blamed photography’s failure on science and mechanical inventions. He saw it as a device that created absolute, factual exactitudes and nothing more.

Hill & Adamson, Photo of Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake, 1847

Lady Elizabeth Eastlake

Married to Sir Charles Eastlake, the Director of National Gallery of Art in London and first President of the Photographic Society of London. Lady Eastlake was an author, critic, and historian who wrote many discourses on art. In one essay, she suggested that photography failed in capturing true chiaroscuro, the contrast of light and dark, but later overlooked these criticisms in favor of photography. She also dismissed the position taken by critics like Baudelaire as mistaken and described photography’s future as an autonomous new medium of communication.

Pierre-Louis Pierson, Countess of Castiglione, 1860s

Mayer & Pierson

Mayer & Pierson published La Photographie, 1862, a book on aesthetics and techniques that proclaim the importance of a photograph. This occurred the same year that Disderi brought out L’Art de La Photographie, in which he discusses the artistic controls available to photographers and compared his studio methods to those of contemporary painters proclaiming that the camera could be controlled like a paint brush.

The quest of photography was to be recognized as an independent medium. In 1861, the French studio of Mayer & Pierson accused another studio Thiebault, Betbeder, and also Schwalbe for copying their works. A law suit ensued and the court declared in favor of Thiebault, Betbeder and also Schwalbe.

La Photographie Book Cover, Mayer & Pierson

(LA PHOTOGRAPHIE CONSIDÉRÉE COMME ART ET
COMME INDUSTRIE: HISTOIRE DE SA DÉCOUVERTE,
SES PROGRÈS, SES APPLICATIONS, SON AVENIR)

Mayer & Pierson Appealed

The case was argued inside and outside the courtroom. When the case reached the supreme court, the defendants claimed that altered photos did not infringe on copyright and produced a document signed by artists stating that photography was not art and should not receive copyright protection.

The lawyers for Mayer & Pierson Produced Photo after Photo Equating the Camera to the Paintbrush

Alas, the supreme court ruled in Mayer & Pierson’s favor and the decision established photography as an art under French copyright law. When photography was finally declared art, satirist Honore Daumier released Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art. This lithograph below features the famous photographer Nadar in his hot air balloon taking pictures above Paris in which every building was labeled photography; thus, suggesting every subject was worthy of photographing. Photography has finally become a legitimate art form.

Honore Daumier, Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art, 1862

However, photographers are still hand coloring photographs. Painters did not like them because they were not paintings per se and photographers rejected them because they were not true photographs. It’s an interesting quandry.

 

Seated Woman, William Edward Kilburn, 1850, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

To hand color a photo took time and skill. The process made photographers less mechanical and more artistic which drove up the fees. This encouraged photographers to portray subjects previously reserved for painters; thus, pushing photography into the realm of true art.

Discovering a Photographic Language as Photography Becomes More Artistic

Nineteenth century realism was a force in the arts. It was a counter to real subject matter of Romantic and Neoclassical paintings with direct and frank views of everyday life. Gustave Courbet used the camera for making studies in painting. He organized the first realist exhibition. Society is in the position to better understand the veracity of photography and their expectations changed. Now, even the painters like Courbet saw the value in photography (and in his case as an aid to his painting process).

During this time, a photograph was considered more artistic if it were hand colored, resembled a painting, and looked less photographic. There was a great paradox of public opinion.

Remember Calotype’s imperfections?

Calotype’s imperfections had a positive effect during this time. Photographers began to discover that beauty came from broad, soft, grainy portrayals rendering human figures as form and mass. Now, it took about ten minutes to make a negative.

 What about this wet plate process?

With the wet plate process, if you want to start over just scrape off the plate and begin again. Professionals preferred the wet plate process. It took one hour and was reusable if a mistake was made.

Amateurs worked toward personal expression like Julia Margaret Cameron, famous female photographer. Personal expression was preferred to commercial studio formats. Cameron rejected the studio poses in favor of more active images and a wider range of facial expressions and postures.

Portrait of Julia Margaret Cameron
by her son Henry Herschel Hay Cameron, 1870
Photograph: © Victoria and Albert Museum

Educational Photography

In an attempt to enhance artistic value, photographers like painters looked to the style of symbolic, narrative allegory to disguise a figure in the embodiment of another. Subjects in photography now appeared as moral, historical, or allegorical figures as in the example of Oscar Rejlander’s photograph titled Two Ways of Life (to be discussed later in this lecture).

Accepted Subject Matter?

During this time, examples of accepted subject matter were family and interior scenes that took into consideration notions of “light.”

Photographer Unknown, British veteran of the Napoleonic War with his wife, c.1860,
hand-tinted ambrotype using the bleached collodion positive process
Example of an acceptable subject pose

Acceptable Subjects and Poses?

Acceptable subjects like the one depicted above ranged from human to dog to toy doll. Acceptable poses were found in the standard portrait studio poses where the sitter might look directly into the camera. Both close up or far away and or slightly blurry was acceptable. This was the family portrait formula now.

At the Same Time…

Twenty four photographic societies popped up and photographs were on exhibit. Walls were covered from top to bottom with thousands of photographs on display in ornate frames.

 Kings College of London Logo

The Result was…

An increase in the demand to learn photography. In December of 1865, Kings College, The University of London, became the first educational institute to offer photographic classes.

Lady Clementina Haywarden, Photographic Study, 1960s

Alas, More Female Photographers are Making Photographs!

 Lady Clementina Haywarden

Lady Clementina Haywarden provided intimate views of private Victorian life. While her life is a mystery, most information about her is derived from her photographs which number in excess of 800 and are views mostly of her daughters.

It is likely that Hawarden began to experiment with photography in 1857, taking stereoscopic landscape photographs around her estate. After moving back to London in 1859, Hawarden then began to photograph her daughters, first making stereoscopic photographs before moving to large-format, stand-alone portraits.

Viscountess Hawarden, Donald Cameron of Lochiel with Clementina Maude,
1861 (perhaps a self-portrait)

Hawarden and her husband had ten children, two boys and eight girls, out of whom eight survived to adulthood. At the same time as being absorbed in motherhood and doting on her children, she was a prolific photographer. She exhibited her work with the Photographic Society of London in 1863 and 1864, under the titles Studies from Life and Photographic Studies and was awarded the Society’s silver medal in both years.

Lady Filmer’s work titled Lady Filmer in her Drawing Room, 1863-68, Albumen prints, collage and watercolor paint.

Cut and Paste Methods and Lady Mary Georgiana Caroline Filmer

Photographers began delving into cut and paste and a world of dreams that enabled unconscious and conscious recognition was born. In Victorian England, aristocratic women produced new meanings for photographs by cutting them up and pasting them into elaborate watercolor scenes. Lady Filmer employed photo collage to bolster her position in society. Here she placed herself at the heart of a gathering of fashionably attired friends and family, making a photo collage album—that is, performing the very activity that produced this work. The composition above revolves around Filmer’s most important guest: Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, with whom she certainly flirted and may even have had an affair. The prince is shown leaning against the table, his hat at a rakish angle and waistline trimmed flatteringly by Lady Filmer’s knife. By contrast, her husband, Sir Edmund Filmer, is shown in the lower right—near the family dog. Credit: Lady Filmer ArticLinks to an external site.

Lady Filmer, Untitled Work, 1864

In the photo collage above, Lady Filmer created a carte-de-visite style water color designs of butterflies and floral arrangements that some suggested exhibited Freudian ideas of an “unconscious association” to sex. The women are delicate like the flowers and butterflies. The design boasts a man at the center which is reflective of this patriarchal society. A cross shape appears to tie it all together. Perhaps a religious reference that all things begin with or are possible through Christ’s death.

Untitled (group photograph, standing from left to right, Col. Murray; Lady Filmer; Col. Steele; Sir Edmund Filmer; seated from left to right, Miss Murray; Major Alison; Lady Agnes(?) Murray; Lord Tyrone). www.harvardmuseum.orgLinks to an external site..

Lewis Carroll, Author

Charles L. Dodgson, better know to most by his pen name, Lewis Carroll, made over 3,000 photographs in his twenty five year career. His photographs were an attempt to mirror the concerns he wrote about in Victorian fantasy novels. He wrote Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He focuses on ideas of female innocence (pre teenage young girls) and virginal beauty.

Lewis Carroll

He was able to probe beneath the face of the sitter, and his pictures create a “picture” for us of Victorian childhood. However, he did photograph young girls in the nude and criticism brought him to destroy most of the images he made.

Landscape and architectural photos by him are sadly unremarkable, portraits of adults by him are mostly conventional, but these photos of female children of his friends and colleagues are the subject of much debate. He photographed Alice Liddell, the Alice of his stories, alone and with her sisters.

Alice Liddell, Beggar Girl, Lewis Carroll, 1858

His contrived images of her as a beggar child in artfully ripped clothes and bare feet is perplexing. It is difficult to reconstruct the Victorian attitude toward children of the upper middle class, and it has been suggested that Carroll may have been more than a little enthralled with Alice.

Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Mary Warner Marien, author of A Cultural History of Photography, suggests that Alice cannot be mistaken for a pauper: her costume, grooming, and especially her pose suggest a child playing a role. But the question remains – Is this a sexually charged image?

What About Recent Criticism?

Recent criticism suggests that Carroll instilled private, erotic innuendo into his photographs of young girls. The nude and semi-dressed photos, many of which were destroyed by Carroll before his death, and then the rest were ordered by his executors to be scrapped, were made with knowledge of the girls parents. In the Victorian era, the child became a potent symbol of purity and innocence. It has been suggested that Carroll’s pictures pivot on the girls’ ignorance of the teasing sexuality of their poses.

A Significant Moment in History

For the first time in history, photographs were hung alongside painting, drawing, and sculpture symbolizing the acceptance of artistic photographs. This moment in history occurred in 1857 at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition.

As a result, the standards for photography changed. Now they were based on the same standards as painting. Photographers realized that the literalness of a photo was considered a hindrance in achieving high art. To complete with allegorical painting and to achieve morally uplifting works, photographers worked at messing up their work by kicking their cameras over to suppress sharpness, by smearing their lenses, and by using second rate equipment. Photographers carefully manipulated scenes like a painter would do in his paintings.

Oscar Rejlander ‘s Allegorical Photographic Montage,
The Two Ways of Life, first exhibited at the
Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857.

Oscar Rejlander

Two photographers who approached the medium of photography like a painter approached the canvas were Oscar Rejlander and Henry Peach Robinson. Rejlander learned the basics of photography to enhance his paintings. He later chose photography over painting and opened a portrait studio. His photograph, Two Ways of Life, is an elaborate allegorical photomontage contrasting philosophy to science. In six weeks, Rejlander did sketches, hired models, and made 30 separate negatives. Then he rephotographed the separate negatives as one in an unusually large size 16 x 31 inches, which forced people to stop and notice. It held its own on the gallery wall.

The photograph was shocking because of the nudity. The story represents a venerable sage introducing two young men into life. One young man is calm and turns toward religion, charity and industry, and the other young man rushes from his guide to the pleasures of the world, typified by various figures representing gambling, wine, licentiousness, and other vices that could potentially end in suicide, insanity, and death.

Two Ways of Life did not sell well and provided a debate on the ethics of combining negatives to manufacture an image that never existed, marking for an early instance of critical thinking about the medium. Rejlander’s work was criticized as imitation. This criticism and financial hardship took a toll on him. The picture detracted and the claim was that it violated the true nature of photography. The belief now was that works of high art could not be accomplished by mechanical contrivances of two or more separate negatives or in the instance of a photomontage like Two Ways of Life.

Photomontage by Rejlander, Two Ways of Life, 1857

The Invention of Photomontages

The process of combination printing led to the first photographic montages designed for public audiences, which provided a refreshing set of representational possibilities. It questioned the established viewing rules and many felt threatened and went on to reject new ways of picture making. The concept that art was a matter of ideas and not limited to special practice was clear.

Art dealers were also resistant to photography as a fine art. They saw it as a threat to their investments and sought to keep photography out of their gallery.

So what kept the conversation about photography alive?

Charles Baudelaire kept the conversation about photography alive. He continued to discuss the credibility and importance of photography

Henry Peach Robinson

Robinson was a painter who took up photography. He was inspired by Rejlander and opened a photographic portrait studio. Robinson made Fading Away from five negatives. The photograph depicts a young girl on her death bed with her grieving mom, sister, and fiancé in attendance.

This sorrowful scene was scandalously marked because it did not conform to accepted ideas of what a picture should be. People perceived it as a literal representation in an age where death was not hidden away. While most people were familiar with such scenes, Robinson was criticized for depicting a dying young girl and was forced to reveal that his primary model was indeed a healthy fourteen year old girl in a theatrical scene set to see how near death she could be made to look. Robinson was also criticized for manufacturing the work. Prince Albert bought Fading Away and wanted every pictorial image Robinson would ever create.

Robinson, Fading Away, 1858

The Guiding Laws of Photography are the Same as Painting Now

Together, Rejlander and Robinson challenged the belief that painters alone had the right to create scenes while photographers could never be more than mere mechanical extensions of their equipment.

For photography to make its way into the art world, it had to debunk such ideas. People got over their shock and eventually accepted it, and Robinson became popular in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1869, he wrote Pictorial Effects in Photography, which advocated that the basic canons of painting become the guiding laws of art photography. It was the most widely read photography text of the nineteenth century.

Robinson believed his combination prints gave more liberty to the photographer; however, critics felt that constructed images violated their sense of photographic veracity. Ultimately, he showed that photography could achieve the same artistic goals as painting. In the end, his allegorical ideas, magical theater technique, and moralizing sentiment were so successful they dominated photographic discourse and styled other ways of thinking photographically.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron was part of the social privileged British, and her home was a meeting place for those of arts and letters. At age 49, her daughter gave her a camera and she became proficient in the wet plate collodion process. Her goal was to make romantic, allegorical pictures following the Pre-Raphaelite belief that industrialization was evil and society should return to the heroes who believed in God and honor and morality.

The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colors and complex compositions of fourteenth century Italian art. The group associated their work with John Ruskin, an English artist, whose influences were driven by his religious background.

Portrait of Julia Margaret Cameron, by her son
Henry Herschel Hay Cameron, 1870. Photograph: Victoria and Albert Museum.

Cameron’s Sappho

Cameron’s Goal is to Capture One’s Spiritual Quality

Cameron disregarded the rules of focus and brought the camera close up to her subjects to reveal psychological qualities.

She made large portraits, used light

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