Lecture Notes-_The Picturesque Period_ Copy

7/29/2019 Lecture Notes-_The Picturesque Period_ Copy

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-invention of photography coincided with the discovery of new lands-countries such as France, Germany and Britain were at their ImperialPower but it was Britain which ruled the world


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- British Empire at its height it was the largest empire in history and, forover a century, was the foremost global power


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-at the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets onthe British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the

sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories.


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-Britain at the height of Industrial Revolution- Industrial Revolution: period from the 18th to the 19th century wheremajor changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation,and technology had a profound effect on conditions of the times


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-great inventions were made specifically in the field of engineering- introduction of steam power, steam engines, steam-powered ships,railways,

-electrical power generation, coal mining, manufacture of moreproduction machines

- Industrial Revolution eventually affecting most of the world, a processthat continues as Industrialisation


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- in 1826, Nipce made permanent images using a wooden box cameramade in France


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-Louis Daguerre invented the first practical photographic method, whichwas named the daguerreotype, in 1836

-Daguerretype images had a startling clarity and were hugely popular


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-William Fox Talbot perfected a different process, the Calotype-published influential book in 1846 The Pencil of Nature-Calotype direct ancestor of modern photography because it used anegative permitting multiple positive


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-Calotype comes from the Greek word kallos for 'beautiful', and for 'impression'.

-Relating his photographic invention to the work of more traditionalartists, Talbot called his images 'photogenic drawings' or later 'sunpictures


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-Picturesque period heavily dominated the aesthetic principles inpainting in England at time

-Picturesque: an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debatein late 18th Century by William Gilpin

-painting follow a certain stylistic ideas, expressing the beauty of thelandscape to create picture perfect images


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- Huges writing on photography, distinguishing between 3 main levels


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- The Picturesque meant that a landscape scene was to be judged anddeemed appropriate for inclusion in a photograph

- landscape not viewed so much in relation to its natural features

- The Picturesque landscape photograph sought visual confirmation of

a timeless Arcadia (an unspoiled, harmonious wilderness)


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-Emerson (1856-1936) learnt to compose, to edit and to avoiddistracting elements in his photographs

-represented the landscape as a pastoral alternative to the vicissitudesof urban life

-- he was influenced by painting but a different kind: the tradition ofConstable, Corot and the Barbizon School


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- Barbizon School of painting included painters dedicated to literal,realistic rendering of the thing seen rather than representing

conventional views-a movement towards realism in art


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-Emerson photographed mostly on the Norfolk Broads-argued against soft focus retouching or combination printing-rejected photographs with an allegorical or narrative structure-- he used mainly technique of photograveur


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-Emerson talked about the democratic approach by which everythingwithin the frame of the image is given equal attention


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- he was very interested in portraying the landscape as a place thatshowed a way of life passing away

- the landscape as an antidode to the city- his images are constructed to an extend: idealizing the countryside as

better than the city


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-a photographer who pushed ideas of composition to its extreme wasHenry Peach Robinson (1830-1901)

-developed composite photographs or process of combination printing:using a series of negatives to construct the photographic image

-made out of separate scene and carry high degree of the theatrical-stressing the moral content of the scene-- images are staged to tell a visual story


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"Pictorial Effect in Photography" (1867) Robinson wrote: "Any dodge,trick and conjuration of any kind is open to the photographer's use.... It

is his imperative duty to avoid the mean, the base and the ugly, and toaim to elevate his subject.... and to correct the unpicturesque....A greatdeal can be done and very beautiful pictures made, by a mixture of the

real and the artificial in a picture.


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-19th Century also established the tradition of travel photography

- foreign cultures were viewed through Western eyes


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-Throughout the 1850s and 1860s photographs of historical andtopographical sights were highly desirable and Frith was one of the

most successful commercial photographers to cater to this demand- pioneering photographic expeditions to the Near East specificallyEgypt proved very popular


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-Thomson's travels in China were often perilous, as he visited remote,almost unpopulated regions far inland

- most of the people he encountered had never seen a Westerner orcamera before


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-known for his prolific seven years' work in India, from 1863 to 1870-impressive body of images of superb technical quality and often ofartistic brilliance


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- travel photographers work underscored Imperial demand for foreignscenes

-photographer is cultural interpreter- images became part of a museum culture by which foreign culturesand civilizations were presented to Britain

--travel photography became a way of posessing those worlds for theEuropean or British eyes

--all these photographers took with them their Western visual taste andtheir picturesque eye

- those images became safe for the Victorian viewer: exotic but not

threatening


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