With the daguerreotype, a new way of preserving the past was born. An exhibit traces how photography developed through the 19th century to became the keeper of history and memories.
By LENNIE BENNETT
Published June 19, 2003
[Images by Thomas Gessler courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts.]
T.R. Williams: Left, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, and princesses Helena and Louise with Prince Arthur, 1856, daguerreotypes mounted in a case.
Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes: Alvin Adams, 1850, daguerreotype.
ST. PETERSBURG - Photography exhibitions have made a strong showing in the Tampa Bay area this year, and now a small one of 19th century photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts gives us a good look at why, from the beginning, photography has been such an embraceable medium.
"Hard Images: Nineteenth-Century Photographs on Copper, Glass and Tin" is more history than art. Seventy examples chosen by Dr. Robert Drapkin from his extensive collection are lined up in the dark, jewel-like Kathryn B. Stenquist Gallery. Most were made in the 1850s, less than 20 years after Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre invented the process that led to seismic changes in the art world. Daguerre didn't do it alone; his partners, Joseph Niepce and Niepce's son Isidore, were co-inventors, but Daguerre's name has always been associated with the invention.
Most of the images in this exhibit are portraits, which were the most obvious use of photography from its start. Daguerreotypes, like paintings, were one of a kind. They captured an image on a silver-coated copper plate that was preserved behind glass and encased in a protective frame. They were exceptional for their clarity of detail. The early ones required the subject to pose for 15 to 20 minutes, but advances within a few years greatly reduced the time. Because of the materials used, they weren't cheap, either, but they were far less expensive than sitting for a painted portrait. Not surprisingly, people of means clamored for them, which is the reason many are of important personages, such as T.R. Williams' portraits of Prince Albert and three of his and Queen Victoria's children.
Americans, who had little cultural inventory from the past, especially loved the new medium. People posed with their dogs, soldiers posed in uniform, friends posed together to commemorate their affection.
Like a lot of art from that time, photography had sentimental and erotic aspects. It became apparent early that the graphic realism that captured a beloved face or a stirring vista was equally effective in producing shots of nude women in voyeuristic, soft-porn detail.
Most examples in this exhibit are by American photographers, including Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes, a team considered by most experts to be the most outstanding American portrait photographers of the 19th century. Matthew Brady is also represented, though not by one of his famous Civil War photographs.
Daguerreotypes had a short run; they were replaced by less expensive plate techniques, such as the tintype and the ambrotype, a process used by Platt D. Babbitt. This savvy businessman photographed tourists at Niagara Falls and offered the photos for sale as mementos; he was the precursor of those annoying cruise ship photographers who lurk near deck chairs and buffet lines.
In 1839, the year daguerreotypes were introduced, William Henry Fox Talbot announced his photographic process, which created a negative image from which multiple prints on paper could be made. It took time for that process to be of practical use because the prints did not have the clarity of daguerreotypes and tended to fade. But by the 1890s, with the development of gelatin silver prints, the daguerreotype was finished except as a curiosity.
Seeing them in this exhibit is a walk into the past with images reflecting back at us sensibilities of their time and glimpses of what was to come.
REVIEW: "Hard Images: Nineteenth-Century Photographs on Copper, Glass and Tin" is at the Museum of Fine Arts, 255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg, through Feb. 8. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. General admission $8, discounts available. (727) 896-2667.
