Victor Regnault and the advance of photography : the art of avoiding errors
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Bibliographic Information
Victor Regnault and the advance of photography : the art of avoiding errors
Princeton University Press, c2005
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-201) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This lavishly illustrated book establishes the towering influence of the scientist Victor Regnault (1810-1878) in the earliest decades of photography, a period of experimentation ripe with artistic, commercial, and scientific possibility. Regnault has a double significance to the early history of photography, as the first leader of the Societe Francaise de Photographie (S.F.P.) and as the maker of more than two hundred calotype (paper negative) portraits and landscapes. His photographic and scientific careers intersected a third field with his appointment in 1852 as director of the Sevres porcelain works. Readers are treated to Regnault's own beguiling pastoral, garden, and forest scenes; striking portraits of the scientists and artists in his circle of friends; quirky images of acoustic experiments; and an insider's view of the Sevres porcelain works. Regnault's richly varied photographs also encompass perhaps the most extensive group of family portraits in early photography, and his romanticized landscapes reflect a moment when the rural outskirts of Paris were being aggressively suburbanized and industrialized.
Occupying a unique and powerful position in the overlapping spheres of photography, science, industry, and art, Regnault was elected president of the newly formed S.F.P. in 1855. By examining his intertwined activities against the backdrop of French photography's nascent pursuit of institutional legitimacy, this book illuminates an important and overlooked body of images and the irregular cultural terrain of early photography.
Table of Contents
Introduction 7 Chapter 1: The Art of Avoiding Errors 13 Chapter 2: The Bull in the China Shop: photography at the Manufacture De SSvres 43 Chapter 3: Fraternity and Family 79 Chapter 4: Landscape in the Shadow of Industry 131 Chapter 5: The Three Faces of Photography 181 Notes 189 Selected Bibliography 199 Acknowledgments 202 Index 203
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