1 / 66

The Camera's Impact on War Perception: Documentary Realism vs Romantic Idealism

Explore how photography, particularly the work of Roger Fenton and Mathew Brady, transformed the way war is perceived. Analyze the contrast between documentary realism and romantic idealism, the role of photography in propaganda and truth-telling, and the commercialism and Orientalism associated with war photography.

rblume
Download Presentation

The Camera's Impact on War Perception: Documentary Realism vs Romantic Idealism

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. First Photography ofWarRoger Fenton(English, 1819-1869) Crimean War (1853-1856) Mathew Brady(American, 1823-1896)American Civil War (1861-1865) How has the camera transformed the way war is perceived? Documentary realism versus romantic idealism Photography versus painting Propaganda versus truth (Can the camera lie?) Commercialism and photography Orientalism, Imperialism, Manifest Destiny

  2. “Art-Progress,”Punch Cartoon, London, 1858Mockery of photography’s claims to “art” status because of commercial competition and mass popularity of photography“Now, Mum! Take Orf Yer ‘Had for Sixpence, or Yer ‘Ole Body For A Shellin’!”

  3. Britain’s Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901 Her name and values identify the Victorian era in Europe Edwin Landseer (British), Windsor Castle in Modern Times, 1841-5, oil on canvas 44 x 56” Victoria and Albert “at home” Roger Fenton (British, 1819–1869) The Queen and the Prince, wet plate 1854

  4. Top: Joseph Paxton (British, 1801 - 1865), The Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London, 1851Bottom: A. W. N Pugin (British, 1812-1852) Houses of Parliament, LondonGothic Revivalism begun 1840

  5. Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, 1851

  6. Compare bed and new railroad cars exhibited at Great Exhibition of 1851 (Crystal Palace)

  7. William Holman Hunt (British, 1827-1910), The Awakening Conscience, 1853-4 o/c, shaped canvas (arched top), 30/22” Tate Britain

  8. William Holman Hunt, The Hireling Shepherd, 1851, Pre-Raphaelite passion for descriptive detail and moral messages

  9. Roger Fenton Self-Portrait as French Zouave Soldier (left), 1855Pasha and Bayadere, 1858, albumen printOrientalism

  10. Roger Fenton, Orientalist Group, 1858Albumen silver print from glass negative

  11. Roger Fenton,Still Life with Fruit, 1860, albumen silver print from glass negative, 14 x 17” Fruits of the world (the British Empire) with “oriental” tapestry fringes

  12. Roger Fenton, Photographic van with Fenton’s assistant, Crimea, 1854 Salted paper print from wet collodion negative The Crimea extends into the Black Sea between Russia and Turkey

  13. Fenton, Balaklava Harbor, Ukraine (Crimea) 1885 , salt print from wet plate

  14. Fenton, Encampment of Horse Artillery, near Balaklava harbor, Crimea1855, salt print from wet plate

  15. Fenton, Valley of the Shadow of Death, site of the suicidal charge of the light brigade, salt print, April 23,1855Christian Bible and Alfred Lord Tennyson poem

  16. Compare the effect of photography versus painting in representations of war:Fenton, The Valley of the Shadow of Death(right) William Simson, Charge of the Light Brigade, 1855

  17. Compare the effect of photography versus oil painting in representations of war:(right) RogerFenton, Survivors ofThe Charge of the Light Brigade, 1885, with (left top) Richard Caton Woodville, The Light Brigade, 1856 1936 Hollywood movie War heroes

  18. Fenton, Survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade, 1885 Florence Nightingale (English, 1820-1910). Crimean war and first modern nursing - reduced the mortality rate for the wounded from 50% to 3%

  19. Mathew Brady (American, 1823-1896)Mathew Brady’s Picture Gallery, New York“Brady of Broadway”In 1839 Brady met, and became a student to Samuel Morse. That same year he met Louis Daguerre in Paris and went back to the United States to capitalize upon the invention of the Daguerreotype, establishing a highly successful Gallery.

  20. Mathew Brady, Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1864 "Make no mistake, gentlemen, Brady made me President!"(Lincoln)

  21. Mathew Brady, Portrait of General Grant, 1864

  22. Battle Between the C.S.S. Virginia and the U.S.S. Monitor Hampton Roads, VA, March 9, 1862The Civil War was an “unprecedented assignment—as new to photography as the military actions employing new long-range weapons were new to warfare. The first modern war in its scale of destruction—close to half a million casualties— and in the use of mechanized weaponry, including steel-plated naval vessels, trenches, and, in Sherman's march through Georgia in 1864, a scorched-earth policy…. Alan Trachtenberg

  23. Brady’s “Outfit for War”1862: The process Brady's team used was the collodion one, invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. The limitations of equipment and materials prevented any action shots, but the photographers brought back some seven thousand pictures portraying the realities of war.

  24. Brady, Dead at Antietam Church, 1862

  25. Brady, Dead at Antietam Battlefield, 1862

  26. Timothy O’Sullivan, A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, July, 1863

  27. Compare: Mathew Brady (Studio of), Confederate Prisoners, Gettysburg, July 1863Winslow Homer (American, 1836 -1910), Prisoners from the Front, 1866Oil on canvas; 24 x 38 in

  28. Timothy O’Sullivan, Dead Soldier, 1863

  29. Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1770

  30. Compare war photography with war painting

  31. Compare: Emmanuel LeutzeGeorge Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851Timothy O’Sullivan, Dead Soldier, 1863

  32. Mathew Brady (studio of), Ruins of the Gallego Flour Mills, Richmond, Virginia, 1865 Albumen silver print, 7 1/8 x 8 13/16 inches

  33. Brady, Ruins of Richmond, Virginia, albumen silver print, 1865

  34. Mathew Brady (studio of), Ruins of the Gallego Flour Mills, Richmond, Virginia, 1865 Albumen silver print, 7 1/8 x 8 13/16 inchesCompare with Thomas Cole, Desolation, oil on canvas, last in Cole’s prescient seriesThe Course of Empire, 1936

  35. Stereoscope – hugely popular after presentation at the Crystal Palace, 1851“Judging from the revival of [Civil War] images starting in the 1880s, the public relished the terror—or found ways to deny it.” (Trachtenberg) Set of stereoscope cards with images of war Modern visuality: War in 3-D as living room entertainment

  36. Documenting Imperialism: Manifest Destiny (United States) and the World Empires of Europe

  37. Will Soule (U.S., 1836-1908)Indian Gallery, 1870-75Documenting Manifest Destiny Soule was a young Civil War veteran who took a job on the frontier and made an important series of Native American portraits at Fort Sill, Oklahoma from 1869 to 1874. Cheyenne Indian Camp, 1870-75

  38. Will Soule, Scalped Hunter near Fort Dodge Kansas, 1868 Albumen print on calligraphic mount, 6 x 7.75”

  39. Albert Bierstadt (German-born American Hudson River School Painter, 1830-1902) EmigrantsCrossing the Plains, 1867Manifest Destiny

  40. Edward Curtis (U.S. 1869-1952) Canyon de Chelly, Navajo, 1904Note: You are responsible for the information on Edward Curtis presented by Professor Listopad Curtis published The North American Indian in installments between 1907 and 1930

  41. Thomas Hill (American, born England 1829-1908), Great Canyon of the Sierra, Yosemite, 1871, oil on canvas, 72 in. x 120”, The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento Curtis, Canyon de Chelly (Arizona) Navajo, 1904 How do the history of painting and the history of photography intersect?

  42. Charles Christian Nahl, American (born Germany, 1818-1878), Sunday Morning in the Mines, 1872, oil on canvas, 72 x 108” Anonymous photographer, California Gold Rush, 1850s

  43. Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) El-Eachas or Three Brothers, Yosemite, c.1861, 16 x 21” albumen silver print

  44. Carleton Watkins, Yosemite Valley, from "Best General View“ c. 1865, albumen silver print from glass negativeCame West to photograph the California Gold Rush

  45. Carleton Watkins, Grizzly Grove, 1861

  46. Timothy O’Sullivan (American, 1840-1882), Steamboat Springs, Washoe, Nevada, 1867, Albumen silver print After the Civil War, O’Sullivan became a photographer for the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, the first survey of the American West. He returned to Washington, D.C. in 1874 and made prints for the Army Corps of Engineers.

  47. Maxime du Camp, The Colossus of Abu Simbel, Nubia, 1850, salted paper print, published in L.d. Blanquart-Evard’s Egypt, Nubia, Palestine et Syrie, Paris, 1852, which contained 122 calotypes

  48. Francis Frith (British 1822-1899), The Sphinx and Great Pyramid Geezah, 6.5 x 9”, albumen silver print, published in book, Sinai and Palestine, c. 1862 William Holman Hunt,Nazareth, 1855, watercolor, Pre-Raphaelite. European fascination with “Holy Lands” Orientalism

  49. John Beasly Greene (American, 1832-1856), Bank of Nile at Thebes, 1854, c. 9 x 12”, salted paper print. Pictorial effect achieved with calotype’s granular look visually uniting sky and water

  50. Casper David Friedrich, Monk by The Sea, o/c, 1809, German Romanticism John Beasly Greene, Bank of Nile at Thebes, 1854

More Related