Painting and the Invention of Photography
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BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY Painting and the Invention of Photography o:P BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY •d BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY Painting and the Invention of Photography PETER GALASSI THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK Distributed by New York Graphic Society, Boston 1 This book and the exhibition it accompanies have been made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts Schedule of the exhibition: The Museum of Modern Art, New York May 9 - July 5, 198 Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska September 12- November 8, 1981 Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery University of California, Los Angeles January 4- February 11, 1982 The Art Institute of Chicago March 15 - May 9, 1982 Copyright (c) 198 1 by The Museum of Modern Art All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 81-80568 Clothbound ISBN 0-87070-253-X Paperbound ISBN 0-87070-254-8 Designed by Antony Drobinski Type set by Concept Typographic Services, New York i'rintcd by Morgan Press Inc., Dobbs Ferry, New York Bound by Publishers Book Bindery, Long Island City, New York The Museum of Modern Art 1 1 West 5 3 Street New York, New York 10019 Printed in the United States of America 1 CONTENTS Acknowledgments 6 Lenders to the Exhibition 8 BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY 1 PLATES Paintings and Drawings 33 Panoramas 73 Photographs 81 CATALOGUE Paintings and Drawings 1 19 Photographs 133 Bibhography 146 Photograph Credits 150 Index to the Artists in the Exhibition 151 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many individuals and institutions have contributed generously to the preparation of this exhibition and book. The greatest contribution is- that of the lenders, who are listed on page 8. Many of the private lenders, and officers of the lending institutions, also have provided indispensable advice, assistance, and information. For this help I owe great thanks to Helmut Borsch-Supan, Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlosser und Garten, Berlin; Gunter Busch and Gerhard Gerkens, Kunsthalle, Bremen; Hanne Finsen, The Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen; Werner Hofmann and Helmut R. Leppien, Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Martin Butlin, The Tate Gallery, London; C. M. Kauffmann and Mark Haworth-Booth, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Richard Pare, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; Knut Berg and Tone Skedsmo, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo; Michel Laclotte, Pierre Rosenberg, Jacques Foucart, and Helene Toussaint, Musee du Louvre, Paris; Daniel Wolf, Daniel Wolf, Inc., New York; Hughes Autexier and Francois Braunschweig, Texbraun, Paris; Harry H. Lunn, Jr., and Ronald J. Hill, Lunn Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Jane Evan-Thomas; Howard Gilman, Pierre Apraxine, and Lee Marks, Gilman Paper Company; Andre and Marie-Therese Jammes; Phyllis Lambert; Samuel J. Wagstaff, Jr.; and Paul F. Walter. For further aid and counsel I am grateful to J. M. F. Baer, Walter Bareiss, Richard R. Brettell, Richard Brilliant, Genevieve Christy, Jacques Fischer, Shaunagh Fitzgerald, John Gage, Jane Gruenebaum, Frangoise Heilbrun, Eugenia Parry Janis, Chantal Kiener, Pierre Lamicq, Francois Lepage, Gerard Levy, the late Milton J. Lewine, Valerie Lloyd, Pierre Miquel, Weston J. Naef, Theodore Reff, Robert Rosenblum, Conal Shields, William F. Stapp, and Wheelock Whitney IIL Marjorie Munsterberg, Kirk Varnedoe, and Maria Morris Hambourg deserve special thanks for the extraordinary generosity with which they contributed their expertise, their original observations, and their time at every stage of my work. I also am particularly grateful for the advice and encouragement of Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Gere and Lawrence Gowing. In 1979-80 my research toward a doctoral dissertation on the early landscapes of Corot was supported by a fellowship in the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This research, although conducted independently, inevitably contributed to the present undertaking. I am thankful to the Metropolitan Museum and, for their counsel and encouragement, to Sir John Pope-Hennessy and Charles S. Moffett of European Paintings. Not a member of the staff of The Museum of Modern Art when I began work on the exhibition, I depended to an unusual degree on that staff. I especially would like to thank Richard E. Oldenburg, Director; Susan Kismaric and Mary E. Fanette, of the Department of Photography; Jane Fluegel, who edited this book; and Antony Drobinski, who designed it. The idea for Before Photography began in 1963, when John Szarkowski was deeply impressed by a lecture by Heinrich Schwarz, entitled "Before 1839: Symptoms and Trends." (Professor Schwarz's seminal contribution is discussed in note 2, p. 30.) Mr. Szarkowski, Director of the Department of Photography at this Museum, developed the idea over a number of years, and in 1979 invited me to prepare the present exhibition. Since then, with great generosity and warmth, Mr. Szarkowski has shared with me his knowledge, his wisdom, his curiosity, and his profoundly original outlook as an art historian. It is also with great warmth that I thank him, not only for his unselfish intellectual guidance but also for the pleasure I have had in working with him. RG. LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION The Federal Republic of Germany Museum Boymans- van Beuningen, Rotterdam Musee Granet, Aix-en-Provence, France The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlosser und Garten, Berlin Daniel Wolf, Inc., New York Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston Texbraun, Paris Kunsthalle, Bremen Lunn Gallery, Washington, D.C. Musee Duplessis, Carpentras, France Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne Arnold H. Crane The Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen Mrs. Jane Evan-Thomas The Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Gere The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Gilman Paper Company Modern Art, Dublin Andre and Marie-Therese Jammes Kunsthalle, Hamburg Phyllis Lambert City Art Galleries, Leeds, England Samuel J. Wagstaff, Jr. Trustees of the British Museum, London Paul E Walter Royal Academy of Arts, London and three anonymous lenders Trustees of the Tate Gallery, London Victoria and Albert Museum, London The Armand Hammer Foundation, Los Angeles Musee Ingres, Montauban, France Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal The Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal Norfolk Museums Service (Norwich Castle Museum), England Musee des Beaux-Arts, Orleans, France Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo Musee du Louvre, Paris Kunstmuseum, Ribe, Denmark International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY Louis de Clercq Entrance Portal, Denderah, 1859-60 Albumen-silver print from a paper negative 8% X II in. From Voyage en Orient, vol. 5, Monuments et sites pittorcsqucs de I'Egypte 7^5-9-7^60 Collection Phyllis Lambert, on loan to the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal Not in exhibition * Perhaps the most curious aspect of the race to invent photography to be primarily scientific. The bulk of writing on photography's pre- is that it was not a race until it was over. With the exception of history, even in works by art historians, has been technical. The Daguerre and Niepce (who became partners), none of the four or five increasing popularity of the camera obscura and the proliferation of serious contestants was aware of the others. Despite this fact, the other mechanical aids to drawing have been traced in detail. These finish was remarkably close. Indeed, the identity of the winner and developments are obviously relevant to the invention of photography. the date of the finish depend on which characteristic of the medium is So too is the cumulative search for new methods of pictorial repro- chosen as salient. There are respectable arguments for Thomas duction, which played, for example, a large role in the experiments of Wedgwood in i8oz, Nicephore Niepce in 1826, William Henry Fox Wedgwood and Niepce. But these technical experiments and Talbot in 1835, and L.-J.-M. Daguerre in 1835 or 1839 (when the enthusiasms answer only one side of the question. invention was publicly announced). No one has proposed that the invention of photography was a This apparent coincidence is all the more striking because, mistake or an isolated flash of genius. Most modern studies of the despite the technical character of the invention, we cannot point to individual inventors treat their careers as representative rather than any technical innovation as a catalyst. All of the inventors simply idiosyncratic, and even the driest technical histories implicitly combined two scientific principles that had been known for quite acknowledge that photography was a product of shared traditions some time. The first of these was optical. Light passing through a and aspirations. The best writers have recognized that these tradi- small aperture in one wall of a dark room (or "camera obscura") tions are social and artistic as well as scientific. Nevertheless, the projects an image on the opposite wall. The camera obscura had problem in this form has received less attention than it deserves, been a familiar tool of artists and scientists from the sixteenth cen- perhaps because it cannot be solved by the analysis of a single biog- tury. From the eighteenth, it had been common in portable form, raphy or sequence of scientific or artistic influences. designed to project on paper or glass an image that the artist could There is little doubt that reference to the great social and politi- trace. The second principle was chemical. In 1727, Johann Heinrich cal transformations of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- Schulze had shown that certain chemicals, especially silver halides, turies is an important feature of any adequate solution. However, this turn dark when exposed to light. The inventors of photography used aspect of the problem is difficult, since hindsight too readily con- such chemicals to render permanent the insubstantial image formed cludes that the early uses of photography satisfied needs that existed in the camera obscura. before its invention. Perhaps it is more logical to suggest that the "Considering that knowledge of the chemical as well as the period spawned a great volume of speculative tinkering, whose spirit optical principles of photography was fairly widespread following and products fostered as well as answered such needs.