Photography was not a bastard left by science on the doorstep of art, but a legitimate child

of the Western pictorial tradition.

Peter Galassi

BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY

LINEAR PERSPECTIVELINEAR PERSPECTIVE

“The ultimate origins of photography – both technical and aesthetic – lie in the fifteenth-century invention of linear perspective.”

Pablo Picasso, Guitar with Sheet Music and Wine Glass, papier collé with drawing,1912

Modern art famously breaks the “laws” of optical perspective that held in Western art for 5 centuries: response to photography?

Non-Western and Pre-Renaissance European Perspectival Systems

Perspective as a Symbolic Form – Irwin Panofsky

Hesire, 2723 BCE. In ancient Egyptian perspectivethe primary value was that the entire body of the(here a servant) who would attend the deceased In the afterlife is needed. “Half” eyes or foreshortened limbs (as representedin optical perspective) would not be functional in the afterlife.

Ancient Egyptian tomb painting: A painting at Abu Simbel shows Ramses II beating war captives. Ramses’ exaggerated size has symbolic meaning signifying his god-like power

and heroic feats.

Tomb painting of the botanical garden of Nebamun, with artificial fish pond, New Kingdom, Egypt, 1400 BCE

Conceptual rather than optical perspective displays each object with equal visibility and detail.

Ma Yuan, Landscape in Moonlight, ca. 1200 CE

Chinese hanging scroll, ink, and color on silk.

Anonymous, The Battles of Hogen and Heiji, Edo period, screen, 17th century Japan

Anonymous, The Persian Prince Humay meets the Chinese Princess Humayun in her garden, c.1430-40, tempera on parchment.

Anonymous, Christ as Ruler of the Universe, the Virgin, and Child, and Saints, ca. 1190, mosaic, Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily.

Anonymous, Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne, Italy, ca. 1280, tempera on wood

Giotto di Bondone, Frescoes, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy,1305-06

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Good Government, ca. 1340, fresco.Palazzo Publico, Siena.

Pietro Lorenzetti, Birth of the Virgin,1342, tempera on wood panel.

Analysis of perspective of Lorenzetti’s Birth of the Virgin.

Masaccio, Trinity (and right, scheme of perspective) 1425-28, fresco, Santa Maria Novella, Florence: considered first use of scientific perspective Masters of Illusion

Leon Battista Alberti published On Painting in 1435, dedicated to Brunelleschi, describing laws of perspective

Drawing by Brunelleschi, The central nave of St. Lorenzo, Florence, Italy

Masters of Illusion

PERSPECTIVE MACHINESPERSPECTIVE MACHINES

Leonardo Da Vinci, Draughtsman Using a Transparent Plane to Draw an Armillary Sphere, 1510

Illustration of Leonardo’s perspective grid

Illustration from the book The Practice of Perspective, by Jean Dubreuil, 1642, showing an artist using a perspective glass

Albrecht Durer, Artist using a glass to take a portrait, 1525, woodcut.

Albrecht Durer, The painter studying the laws of foreshortening, 1525, woodcut. Draughtsmen plotting points for the drawing of a lute in foreshortening.

THE CAMERA OBSCURA

• CAMERA OBSCURA DEVELOPMENTS

• Camera = Latin for “room”. Obscura = Latin for “dark”

• 5th C. B.C. China - References to pinholes in screens revealing an understanding of image formationtranslated as “collecting place”, “locked treasure room.”

Light travels in a straight line and when some of the rays reflected from a bright subject pass through a small hole in thin material they do not scatter but cross and reform as an upside down image on a flat surface held parallel to the hole.

Camera obscura room, 1752

• Camera obscura room, 1754.

Alexandre Saverien, Tent, Room, and Book Camera Obscuras, 1753, engraving.

Portable Camera Obscuras, 1685

A reflex camera obscura.

Camera obscura tent

Peter Gelassi, Before Photography

Photography relies on two scientific principles :

1) A principle of optics on which the Camera Obscura is based

2) Principle of chemistry, that certain combinations of elements, especially silver halides, turn dark when exposed to light (rather than heat or exposure to air) was demonstrated in 1717 by Johann Heinrich Schulze, professor of anatomy at the

University of Altdorf

Piero della Francesca. An Ideal Townscape, c. 1470. Panel, 23 ½” x 78 ¾” (59.69 x 200.01 cm). Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, Italy.

Scientific single-point perspectiveHow might this be a symbolic form?

Emanuel de Witte. Protestant Church, 1669. Oil on panel 17” x 13 ½” (43.18 x 34.29 cm). Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Pieter Saenredam. The Grote Kerk, Haarlem, 1636-37. Oil on panel, 23 ½” x 32 ¼” (59.5 x 81.7 cm). The Trustees of the National Gallery, London.

Paolo Uccello. The Hunt in the Forest, c. 1460. Tempera on wood panel, 25 ½” x 65” (64.77 x 165.1 cm). Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Edgar Degas. The Racing Field: Amateur Jockeys near a Carriage, c. 1877-80. Oil on canvas, 26” x 31 ¾” (66.04 x 80.65 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris

Photographic Vision? How much did photography influence 19th century painting?“A popular presumption today would have it that photographs, and especially fast exposures after c. 1860, revealed a great deal that was new and unique: a revolutionary new world of odd perspectives and viewpoints, peculiar compositional croppings, and candid instantaneity.” Kirk Varnadoe, “The Artifice of Candor”

Edgar Degas, The Rehersal, 1879

de Witte, Protestant Church, 1669

Keep in mind:

Thursday September 22,Thursday September 22,class meets at the California State Libraryclass meets at the California State Library900 N St. entrance at 7 pm.900 N St. entrance at 7 pm.

Gary Kurutz, Director of Special Collections,Gary Kurutz, Director of Special Collections,will present and discuss vintagewill present and discuss vintagephotographs from the collection in the photographs from the collection in the California History Room,California History Room,Room 200 Room 200

Bring notebook and penBring notebook and pen

ART and ART and PHOTOGRAPHYPHOTOGRAPHY

Gary Kurutz, Director of Special Collections

California State Library

P.O. Box 942837

Sacramento, CA 94237-0001

We see examples of 19th century photography such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes,

albumen prints by Eadweard Muybridge and Carleton Watkins, views of the San Francisco earthquake, of the gold rush, and many other works that the students

otherwise would not be able to see anywhere.

Gary does this entirely for free. I estimate that the time required for this service – retrieving the pictures from the vaults, setting up the displays for the class,

lecturing, and putting everything away – to be a full day’s work.

Please send a note of thanks to Gary for this service. His generosity and enthusiasm for the subject make this event the highlight of the semester for us.