I

shy

Figure 1 John MorEll Sir Datid BrcllsliT emd William HCliry rox TilbOl March 1864 Photograph CourtesY the Scicnce MuseUlll London

Talbots Natural Magic

Douglas R Nickel

We might begin with a passage fiolll Talbots first public utterance about his derivation of the process soon to be named photography The date is 31 January 1839 the place is the Royal Society in London and it is six days after Michael Faraday had cOllllllunicated to the Royal Institution that the idea of making pictures gtvith light had an English as well as a French origin That evening Talbot

read his paper Some ACCOllllt (l the Art 0 PllOt(~[cli( Drawil1X outlining the history of his involvement with experiments using nitrate of silver to make images on paper the successes and tlilures of prior investigators and the accuracy of the process f(x copying flat objects In due course in a section captioned On the Art of Fixing a Shadow he asserts

Th OUi

ne sci sta de val wI to ex

In oth techni the II

illustn wayn meth( the I kind but al dedal desig comI in Bl not j pure align and gets

prec

Hel scie the spe des tee to his

reI si1 de sc ylt c( oj

f( o

n fj

wing [lents

the lracy e in ovv

l 2002

This remarkable of whatever value it may turn out in its application to rhe art will at leat be accepted 1 a new proof of the value of the inductive methods of Illodern science which noticmg the occurrence of unusual circulllshystances (whICh accident tlrt Illanifests In sOllle slllall degree) and by with experiment and varying the condItions the true law of nature which they express is conducts u at length to consequences altogether remote from mual experience Jnd contrary to almost universal belief

In other words Talbot is proposing that even if his new technique turns out to be functionally or artistically useless the methodology that led to its discovery nonetheless illustrates the soundness of one approach to the way modem science can be practised namely the inductive method 2 We might call the author of this statement the positivist Talbot for with it he not only the kind of science with which he wants to be associated but also an awareness of the philosophical implications of declaring a method to a field whose unproblematic designation ill his statement modern science belie the complex internal political realities of scientific investigation in Britain in the 1830s By photography as not just an invention but rather as a demonstration of pure research through a rational Baconian system Talbot aligns himself with our own modern disciplinary attitudes and philosophical paradigms about how and why science gets done

Consider however the passage that immediately precedes this one in Talbots paper

The phenomenon which I have no lllelltioned appears to me to partake of the character of the 1II00111I1S almost as much as any fact which physical has yet brought to our knowledge The Illost a shadow the proverbial emblem of all that is lllOmelltary may be fettered by the spells of our lIalliral and lllay be flxed for ever in the position which it seemed destined fix a single instant to occupy 4

Here we have Talbot one of the most distinguished scientists of his day standing before the leading lights of the British intellectual establishment and spells emblems and the archaic dreams of to describe the most important new technology of the nineshyteenth century Talbot submits a variant of this analogy to the Literary Ga2ette of 2 February when he describes his process as little bit of magic realized of natural magic5 In a notebook entry for 3 March Talbot refers to the making of Magic Pictures with silver nitrate on salt paper6 Five days after Talbot delivered his paper his friend and the Scottish scientist Sir David Brewster (figure 1) writes to ask If you have any fragment of your sibylline sketches that you could spare I wih much that you could me a sight of [your] vvonder 7 The Englishman evidently complied for on 12 February Brewster writes to receipt of what he terms your specimens of the black art 8

This manner of reference is not as isolated as one might think John Herschel Talbots other great scientific fnend upon receiving Talbots account of the calotype

two years later writes 011 16 March 1841 I felt sure you would perfect yOUT processes till they equalled or surpassed but this is really you deal with the naughty one Das kommt nifJt lI1it refhtell DillJen as the Germans say The Athn(eum described the process to its readers as A Wonderful Illustration of Modern Necromancy - sorcery in other words a means of communicating with the dead 1o In his introshyduction to The Pencil (f Nature Talbot elaborates upon his prior musings in Some Account (f the Art (l Phorolel1ic Dmlllin~ now characterizing the images on the ground glass of the camera ob5cura as fairy pictures creatiollS of a moment and destined as rapidly to fade How charming it would be he recalls thinking if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed upon the paper 11

The purpose in calling attention to these locutions is twofold It should be obvious that when Talbot and his contemporaries offer up images of fairies fortuneshytellers spirits and alchemy they do 50 poetically as an exercise of wit or as a way of evoking and containing the very superstitions and defunct belief systems that postshyEnlightenment science sought to vanquish A Freudian reading of these might suggest that jocular invocations of witchcraft and the superlldtural in either scientific correspondence or periodicals betrays some deep-seated at the heart of the Enlightenment project regarding the impossibility of banishing altogether irrationality and mythological explanations from the world The goal here is more descriptive however It is to ask what happens when we cake seriously as a category the otherworldly metaphors and linguistic figures that we find Talbot and his peers to describe photography at the moment of its inception not simply because of their frequency but also because sLlch language encodes some of the Romantic epistemological preconditions upon which Talbot based his understanding of science and the nature of reality If photography was for Talbot a proof of the value of the inductive method it vas also reflective of a foundational metaphysics not so easily assimilable into our latter-day picture of Talbot as a positivist This is not to say that it is wrong to label Talbot a positivist shyif anything it is the obvious to do with him This version of him is reductive and excludes those parts of his mental landscape that are interesting precisely because they are foreign to us When we overcome the teleological drive to make nineteenth-century culture the prelude to our own secular technocratic condition and try to understand it on its own terms Victorian England becomes still more fascinating remote and enigmatic

Another reason to take seriously the rhetorical manoeuvres of Talbot and those around him is that these lillfltistic choices had their own cultural consequences In his introduction to The Pencil Talbot acknowledges the shakiness of his bid to be called the inventor of photography if photography is considered simply a techshynique He admits having read Wedgwood and Davys

133

Douglas R lickc

paper of 1 802 ill the JOllmal (~r tlie Royal 1n51i1lltio11 before undertaking in earnest his own experiments their efforts to be curious and interesting and cert~linly establish[ ing 1 their claim as the first inventors of the Photographic Art but goes on to maintain that though my own labours had been directly anticipated by Wed6lvood yet the improvements vere so great in all respects that 1 think the year 1[-139 may [lirly be considered as the real date of the birth of the Photographic Art that is to say its firltt public disclosure to the world Notwithstanding the poundlct that some might deem publication in the Journal of tlte Royal instit1ltion public disclosure what Talbot is propounding here IS thlt invention can also consist of improving a known technique to a stage of readiness for public acceptance A philologist who was himself then preparing a book on etymology Talbot recognized that how something was talked about determined the way it was thought about a principle we would today describe as philosophical nominalism The cultural invention of photography its invention as an idea rather than a practice - depended upon its presenters abilities to frame its workings in intelligible and effective tenns to naturalize its newness and pave the way for its assimilation through analogy to pre-existing ideas and beliefs If we compare Talbots introduction of his process with that ofWedgwood and Davy Talbots is as rich in figurative allusion as Wedgwoods is a dry list of chemical operatiolls 13 In this respect VC should Talbot as a founder of photoshygraphic discourse one of the first writers to invent photography as a potent idea Then we must ask what the discursive regularity of metaphors conjuring of black magic and the occult might have to do with those segments of modern science and the public imagination to which Talbot was appealing This seemingly irrational counterdiscourse has enjoyed its share of historiographic success One need only recall Roland Barthess plea in Camfra Lucida to preserve the illefitble in photography against positivist explanation and his desire to safeguard its irrationality (what he calls its to glimpse how a history of photographic metaphysics may be seen to begin with Talbot and his circle14 When we open ourselves to their centrality to nineteenth-century thought and in the conceptualization of photography in particular spiritual figurations of this sort abound

Mapping a few of these metaphysical tropes will illustrate the point When Talbot refers to photography as a bit of natural magic the contemporary reader would have understood him to be glossing the classical and medieval doctrines out of which modern science arose namely alchemy and the herrnetic tradition So-called books of secrets back to Aristotle were the first texts to include explanations of natures behaviour and experiments for accessing the esoteric knowledge thought to be locked within her precincts The production of such books reached its apogee in the sixteenth century the best known example being the 1584 1fajiae Natumlis by the Neapolitan Giambattista della Porta Portas volume

134

was a bestseller it went through fIfry editions over the next century being translated into Italian French German Dutch Spanish Arabic and English IS The twenty books of Natural Alagic were not systematic They were typical

of the genre in compiling wisdom from various sources ancient and modern and of various kinds including recipes for coloured dyes the preparation of quenching waters for iron and steel healing herbs for diverse afflictions and antidotes for poisons Included also

are techniques for the manufacture of artificial gems practical alchemical formulas such as a jeweller or tinsmith might use and one of the earliest descriptions of the camera obscura Such discussions were not theoretical shythey did not ask why particular worked any more than a modem cookbook does - bm were how-to guides

to the phenomena of the natural world Nevertheless books such as Portas manifested a coherent view of nature The basic assumption of natural magic was that nature teemed with hidden forces that could be harnessed

imitated improved upon and used for human gain that natures external appearances cOllceal an underlying reality that could be tapped at wilL III Porta hands natural mafric was white magic a demonstration of Christian Neoshyplatonism his stated goal was to offer rational naturalistic explanations of the occult forces of nature to combat the bias towards fallacy ignorance and mischief among men Let envy be driven away he writes and a desire to benefit posterity vmquish all other thoughts The most

rnajestic wonders of nature are not to be concealed that in them we may admire the mighty powers of God his wisdom his bounty and therein reverence and adore him 16

Natural was not just a philosophy but an ideology and in Portas time it was one that was suggestive of Reformation politics In the seventeenth century the Catholic Church obstructed its dissemination it

was too close to demonic magic and redolent of pagan superstition It was considered heretical in its desire to make miracles natural 110 exception from the clergys effort to protect the faithfiJI from magic of all sorts At stake was the Churchs jurisdiction over supernatural forces

for in the popular imagination magic remedies competed with clerical ones As guardian of Scriptural prophecy the Church felt threatened also by the way natural

condoned astrological forecasting and divination Porta spent his lifetime dodging the Inquisition and charges of witchcraft when in [let his philosophy aimed only to dispel (lise beliefs and ignorance Voltaire later quarrelled ~with the Church over this same enthrallment with supershy

stition and magic he objected to a Church that did not denollnce sorcerers as deluded madmen but dealt with them rather as men vho really had commerce with the

Devil 17 Yet the empirical premises upon which natural magic was demonstrated were often sound and when this tradition was combined vith Aristotelian natural philosophy it became the foundation of modem science

o

of the EdinlH andF St Sal of th additi It w St At betW reeei wrot ofth a letl that payiJ

in ti boo) subj~

as 0

hist( time infh po

for war oft For wit use for the thr thf ill WI

th~

WI

tV

sO

pi sc

wing [lents

the lracy e in ovv

l 2002

This remarkable of whatever value it may turn out in its application to rhe art will at leat be accepted 1 a new proof of the value of the inductive methods of Illodern science which noticmg the occurrence of unusual circulllshystances (whICh accident tlrt Illanifests In sOllle slllall degree) and by with experiment and varying the condItions the true law of nature which they express is conducts u at length to consequences altogether remote from mual experience Jnd contrary to almost universal belief

In other words Talbot is proposing that even if his new technique turns out to be functionally or artistically useless the methodology that led to its discovery nonetheless illustrates the soundness of one approach to the way modem science can be practised namely the inductive method 2 We might call the author of this statement the positivist Talbot for with it he not only the kind of science with which he wants to be associated but also an awareness of the philosophical implications of declaring a method to a field whose unproblematic designation ill his statement modern science belie the complex internal political realities of scientific investigation in Britain in the 1830s By photography as not just an invention but rather as a demonstration of pure research through a rational Baconian system Talbot aligns himself with our own modern disciplinary attitudes and philosophical paradigms about how and why science gets done

Consider however the passage that immediately precedes this one in Talbots paper

The phenomenon which I have no lllelltioned appears to me to partake of the character of the 1II00111I1S almost as much as any fact which physical has yet brought to our knowledge The Illost a shadow the proverbial emblem of all that is lllOmelltary may be fettered by the spells of our lIalliral and lllay be flxed for ever in the position which it seemed destined fix a single instant to occupy 4

Here we have Talbot one of the most distinguished scientists of his day standing before the leading lights of the British intellectual establishment and spells emblems and the archaic dreams of to describe the most important new technology of the nineshyteenth century Talbot submits a variant of this analogy to the Literary Ga2ette of 2 February when he describes his process as little bit of magic realized of natural magic5 In a notebook entry for 3 March Talbot refers to the making of Magic Pictures with silver nitrate on salt paper6 Five days after Talbot delivered his paper his friend and the Scottish scientist Sir David Brewster (figure 1) writes to ask If you have any fragment of your sibylline sketches that you could spare I wih much that you could me a sight of [your] vvonder 7 The Englishman evidently complied for on 12 February Brewster writes to receipt of what he terms your specimens of the black art 8

This manner of reference is not as isolated as one might think John Herschel Talbots other great scientific fnend upon receiving Talbots account of the calotype

two years later writes 011 16 March 1841 I felt sure you would perfect yOUT processes till they equalled or surpassed but this is really you deal with the naughty one Das kommt nifJt lI1it refhtell DillJen as the Germans say The Athn(eum described the process to its readers as A Wonderful Illustration of Modern Necromancy - sorcery in other words a means of communicating with the dead 1o In his introshyduction to The Pencil (f Nature Talbot elaborates upon his prior musings in Some Account (f the Art (l Phorolel1ic Dmlllin~ now characterizing the images on the ground glass of the camera ob5cura as fairy pictures creatiollS of a moment and destined as rapidly to fade How charming it would be he recalls thinking if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed upon the paper 11

The purpose in calling attention to these locutions is twofold It should be obvious that when Talbot and his contemporaries offer up images of fairies fortuneshytellers spirits and alchemy they do 50 poetically as an exercise of wit or as a way of evoking and containing the very superstitions and defunct belief systems that postshyEnlightenment science sought to vanquish A Freudian reading of these might suggest that jocular invocations of witchcraft and the superlldtural in either scientific correspondence or periodicals betrays some deep-seated at the heart of the Enlightenment project regarding the impossibility of banishing altogether irrationality and mythological explanations from the world The goal here is more descriptive however It is to ask what happens when we cake seriously as a category the otherworldly metaphors and linguistic figures that we find Talbot and his peers to describe photography at the moment of its inception not simply because of their frequency but also because sLlch language encodes some of the Romantic epistemological preconditions upon which Talbot based his understanding of science and the nature of reality If photography was for Talbot a proof of the value of the inductive method it vas also reflective of a foundational metaphysics not so easily assimilable into our latter-day picture of Talbot as a positivist This is not to say that it is wrong to label Talbot a positivist shyif anything it is the obvious to do with him This version of him is reductive and excludes those parts of his mental landscape that are interesting precisely because they are foreign to us When we overcome the teleological drive to make nineteenth-century culture the prelude to our own secular technocratic condition and try to understand it on its own terms Victorian England becomes still more fascinating remote and enigmatic

Another reason to take seriously the rhetorical manoeuvres of Talbot and those around him is that these lillfltistic choices had their own cultural consequences In his introduction to The Pencil Talbot acknowledges the shakiness of his bid to be called the inventor of photography if photography is considered simply a techshynique He admits having read Wedgwood and Davys

133

Douglas R lickc

paper of 1 802 ill the JOllmal (~r tlie Royal 1n51i1lltio11 before undertaking in earnest his own experiments their efforts to be curious and interesting and cert~linly establish[ ing 1 their claim as the first inventors of the Photographic Art but goes on to maintain that though my own labours had been directly anticipated by Wed6lvood yet the improvements vere so great in all respects that 1 think the year 1[-139 may [lirly be considered as the real date of the birth of the Photographic Art that is to say its firltt public disclosure to the world Notwithstanding the poundlct that some might deem publication in the Journal of tlte Royal instit1ltion public disclosure what Talbot is propounding here IS thlt invention can also consist of improving a known technique to a stage of readiness for public acceptance A philologist who was himself then preparing a book on etymology Talbot recognized that how something was talked about determined the way it was thought about a principle we would today describe as philosophical nominalism The cultural invention of photography its invention as an idea rather than a practice - depended upon its presenters abilities to frame its workings in intelligible and effective tenns to naturalize its newness and pave the way for its assimilation through analogy to pre-existing ideas and beliefs If we compare Talbots introduction of his process with that ofWedgwood and Davy Talbots is as rich in figurative allusion as Wedgwoods is a dry list of chemical operatiolls 13 In this respect VC should Talbot as a founder of photoshygraphic discourse one of the first writers to invent photography as a potent idea Then we must ask what the discursive regularity of metaphors conjuring of black magic and the occult might have to do with those segments of modern science and the public imagination to which Talbot was appealing This seemingly irrational counterdiscourse has enjoyed its share of historiographic success One need only recall Roland Barthess plea in Camfra Lucida to preserve the illefitble in photography against positivist explanation and his desire to safeguard its irrationality (what he calls its to glimpse how a history of photographic metaphysics may be seen to begin with Talbot and his circle14 When we open ourselves to their centrality to nineteenth-century thought and in the conceptualization of photography in particular spiritual figurations of this sort abound

Mapping a few of these metaphysical tropes will illustrate the point When Talbot refers to photography as a bit of natural magic the contemporary reader would have understood him to be glossing the classical and medieval doctrines out of which modern science arose namely alchemy and the herrnetic tradition So-called books of secrets back to Aristotle were the first texts to include explanations of natures behaviour and experiments for accessing the esoteric knowledge thought to be locked within her precincts The production of such books reached its apogee in the sixteenth century the best known example being the 1584 1fajiae Natumlis by the Neapolitan Giambattista della Porta Portas volume

134

was a bestseller it went through fIfry editions over the next century being translated into Italian French German Dutch Spanish Arabic and English IS The twenty books of Natural Alagic were not systematic They were typical

of the genre in compiling wisdom from various sources ancient and modern and of various kinds including recipes for coloured dyes the preparation of quenching waters for iron and steel healing herbs for diverse afflictions and antidotes for poisons Included also

are techniques for the manufacture of artificial gems practical alchemical formulas such as a jeweller or tinsmith might use and one of the earliest descriptions of the camera obscura Such discussions were not theoretical shythey did not ask why particular worked any more than a modem cookbook does - bm were how-to guides

to the phenomena of the natural world Nevertheless books such as Portas manifested a coherent view of nature The basic assumption of natural magic was that nature teemed with hidden forces that could be harnessed

imitated improved upon and used for human gain that natures external appearances cOllceal an underlying reality that could be tapped at wilL III Porta hands natural mafric was white magic a demonstration of Christian Neoshyplatonism his stated goal was to offer rational naturalistic explanations of the occult forces of nature to combat the bias towards fallacy ignorance and mischief among men Let envy be driven away he writes and a desire to benefit posterity vmquish all other thoughts The most

rnajestic wonders of nature are not to be concealed that in them we may admire the mighty powers of God his wisdom his bounty and therein reverence and adore him 16

Natural was not just a philosophy but an ideology and in Portas time it was one that was suggestive of Reformation politics In the seventeenth century the Catholic Church obstructed its dissemination it

was too close to demonic magic and redolent of pagan superstition It was considered heretical in its desire to make miracles natural 110 exception from the clergys effort to protect the faithfiJI from magic of all sorts At stake was the Churchs jurisdiction over supernatural forces

for in the popular imagination magic remedies competed with clerical ones As guardian of Scriptural prophecy the Church felt threatened also by the way natural

condoned astrological forecasting and divination Porta spent his lifetime dodging the Inquisition and charges of witchcraft when in [let his philosophy aimed only to dispel (lise beliefs and ignorance Voltaire later quarrelled ~with the Church over this same enthrallment with supershy

stition and magic he objected to a Church that did not denollnce sorcerers as deluded madmen but dealt with them rather as men vho really had commerce with the

Devil 17 Yet the empirical premises upon which natural magic was demonstrated were often sound and when this tradition was combined vith Aristotelian natural philosophy it became the foundation of modem science

o

of the EdinlH andF St Sal of th additi It w St At betW reeei wrot ofth a letl that payiJ

in ti boo) subj~

as 0

hist( time infh po

for war oft For wit use for the thr thf ill WI

th~

WI

tV

sO

pi sc

Douglas R lickc

paper of 1 802 ill the JOllmal (~r tlie Royal 1n51i1lltio11 before undertaking in earnest his own experiments their efforts to be curious and interesting and cert~linly establish[ ing 1 their claim as the first inventors of the Photographic Art but goes on to maintain that though my own labours had been directly anticipated by Wed6lvood yet the improvements vere so great in all respects that 1 think the year 1[-139 may [lirly be considered as the real date of the birth of the Photographic Art that is to say its firltt public disclosure to the world Notwithstanding the poundlct that some might deem publication in the Journal of tlte Royal instit1ltion public disclosure what Talbot is propounding here IS thlt invention can also consist of improving a known technique to a stage of readiness for public acceptance A philologist who was himself then preparing a book on etymology Talbot recognized that how something was talked about determined the way it was thought about a principle we would today describe as philosophical nominalism The cultural invention of photography its invention as an idea rather than a practice - depended upon its presenters abilities to frame its workings in intelligible and effective tenns to naturalize its newness and pave the way for its assimilation through analogy to pre-existing ideas and beliefs If we compare Talbots introduction of his process with that ofWedgwood and Davy Talbots is as rich in figurative allusion as Wedgwoods is a dry list of chemical operatiolls 13 In this respect VC should Talbot as a founder of photoshygraphic discourse one of the first writers to invent photography as a potent idea Then we must ask what the discursive regularity of metaphors conjuring of black magic and the occult might have to do with those segments of modern science and the public imagination to which Talbot was appealing This seemingly irrational counterdiscourse has enjoyed its share of historiographic success One need only recall Roland Barthess plea in Camfra Lucida to preserve the illefitble in photography against positivist explanation and his desire to safeguard its irrationality (what he calls its to glimpse how a history of photographic metaphysics may be seen to begin with Talbot and his circle14 When we open ourselves to their centrality to nineteenth-century thought and in the conceptualization of photography in particular spiritual figurations of this sort abound

Mapping a few of these metaphysical tropes will illustrate the point When Talbot refers to photography as a bit of natural magic the contemporary reader would have understood him to be glossing the classical and medieval doctrines out of which modern science arose namely alchemy and the herrnetic tradition So-called books of secrets back to Aristotle were the first texts to include explanations of natures behaviour and experiments for accessing the esoteric knowledge thought to be locked within her precincts The production of such books reached its apogee in the sixteenth century the best known example being the 1584 1fajiae Natumlis by the Neapolitan Giambattista della Porta Portas volume

134

was a bestseller it went through fIfry editions over the next century being translated into Italian French German Dutch Spanish Arabic and English IS The twenty books of Natural Alagic were not systematic They were typical

of the genre in compiling wisdom from various sources ancient and modern and of various kinds including recipes for coloured dyes the preparation of quenching waters for iron and steel healing herbs for diverse afflictions and antidotes for poisons Included also

are techniques for the manufacture of artificial gems practical alchemical formulas such as a jeweller or tinsmith might use and one of the earliest descriptions of the camera obscura Such discussions were not theoretical shythey did not ask why particular worked any more than a modem cookbook does - bm were how-to guides

to the phenomena of the natural world Nevertheless books such as Portas manifested a coherent view of nature The basic assumption of natural magic was that nature teemed with hidden forces that could be harnessed

imitated improved upon and used for human gain that natures external appearances cOllceal an underlying reality that could be tapped at wilL III Porta hands natural mafric was white magic a demonstration of Christian Neoshyplatonism his stated goal was to offer rational naturalistic explanations of the occult forces of nature to combat the bias towards fallacy ignorance and mischief among men Let envy be driven away he writes and a desire to benefit posterity vmquish all other thoughts The most

rnajestic wonders of nature are not to be concealed that in them we may admire the mighty powers of God his wisdom his bounty and therein reverence and adore him 16

Natural was not just a philosophy but an ideology and in Portas time it was one that was suggestive of Reformation politics In the seventeenth century the Catholic Church obstructed its dissemination it

was too close to demonic magic and redolent of pagan superstition It was considered heretical in its desire to make miracles natural 110 exception from the clergys effort to protect the faithfiJI from magic of all sorts At stake was the Churchs jurisdiction over supernatural forces

for in the popular imagination magic remedies competed with clerical ones As guardian of Scriptural prophecy the Church felt threatened also by the way natural

condoned astrological forecasting and divination Porta spent his lifetime dodging the Inquisition and charges of witchcraft when in [let his philosophy aimed only to dispel (lise beliefs and ignorance Voltaire later quarrelled ~with the Church over this same enthrallment with supershy

stition and magic he objected to a Church that did not denollnce sorcerers as deluded madmen but dealt with them rather as men vho really had commerce with the

Devil 17 Yet the empirical premises upon which natural magic was demonstrated were often sound and when this tradition was combined vith Aristotelian natural philosophy it became the foundation of modem science

o

of the EdinlH andF St Sal of th additi It w St At betW reeei wrot ofth a letl that payiJ

in ti boo) subj~

as 0

hist( time infh po

for war oft For wit use for the thr thf ill WI

th~

WI

tV

sO

pi sc

ver the erman books

typical ources

~nching

rbs for led also

gems nsmith of the

ical y more guides

theless lew of as that nessed n that reality natural 1 Neoshyralistic Jat the men sire to most d that )d his

adore

ut an

~estive

ry the ling it pagan ire to ergys

ts At forces peted hecy

magIc Porta

es of tly to relIed upershyj not

with h the Hural 11 this )phy

One might think the theological politics of natural magic would have been outmoded by Talbots era but this was not the case As we have noted one early recipient of Talbots photogenic drawings was David Brewster one of the pre-eminent scientists of the day Editor of the Edinbu~((h Afagazine and the Edif1blJ(((it PJilosopiliral Journal and Principal of the United College of St Leonard and St Salvator at St Andrews Brewster was also a member of the evangelical wing of the Church of Scotland In addition he was one of Talbots closest scientific friends 1R

It was Brewster who introduced photography into St Andrews and it was he who brokered the partnership between Robert Adarnson and David Octavius Hill Upon receiving 1m first photographs from Talbot Brewster wrote in appreciation of what he called your specimens of the black art He deploys this sorcery allusion again in a letter of 23 February to James David writing that Talbots specimens of the Black Art have been paying visits at KinsCmns Castle ofScone19

Brewsters demonic references are especially curious in light of the fact that in 1832 he himself published a book entitled Letters 011 latural Magic This begins The subject of Natural Magic is olle of great extent as well as of deep interest In its widest range it embraces the history of the governments and the superstitions of ancient times of the means by which they maintained their influence over the human mind from a knowledge of the powers and phenomena of nature20 Brewsters pretext for writing on natural magic was ultimately political he wanted to discredit the occult and show how knowledge of the natural sciences was used as an instrument of state For Brewster such spiritual despotism was associated with the priestly caste and the Roman Church and he used bis book to promote enlightened democratic support for the sciences In Chapters II to Vl he concentrates on the workings of the eye and how it may be deceived dlrough internal or external causes he brands it the seat of the supernatural because it admits to the mind potentially illusory External vision is understood as the handshywriting of Nature on the retina Brewster then compares the eye to a camera two metaphors that Talbot himself ould adopt in the title and text of Tile Pel1dl of laturc twelve years later Underlying Brewsters project are his strong Evangelical faith and his desire to use natural philosophy in the service of an ecumenical piety Modern science may be regarded one vast miracle he writes

Whether we view it in relation to the Being by whom its and laws were formed or to the feeble l11tellect of man which its have been sounded and Its mysteries explored and If the philosopher who is familiarized with its vvonders Jnd who has studied them as necessary results of general laws never ceases to admire and adore their Author how great should be their etfect upon Ie gifted minds who must ever view them in the of inexplicable prodigies Man has in all gtought for a sign from heaven and yet he has been blind to the millions of wonders with which he is surrounded If the following pages should contribute to abate this deplorable indifitrence to all that is grand and sublime 111 the lIniverse and if they

Talbots l1atlnal lv1aj(i(

should inspire the reader with a portlOn of that enthusiasm of love and gratitude which can alone the mind fi1r itl fiml the labours of the will not havL bLen vholly 22

Brewster who would have been ordained himself but for his feu of public speaking joined two other scientific popularizers in Scotland Robert Chambers and Hugh Miller writing about the relationship between science and Christian belief for the benefit of scientists and for less gifted minds23 The impulse behind this plea is apparent for at this time there was no concept of an autonomous professional scientist in Great Britain One had to gain a university chair or like Brewster to his appointment at St Andrews support ones mental activities through freelance writing Stressll1g the relation between natural philosophy and moral philosophy made state support of the empirical sciences justifiable and this is what Brevster was advocating social stability through religlOus education In a review drafted in 1H3~ Brewster writes While the vulgar gaze in mysterious wonder at the results of creative power the student of nature perceives the unity of desigll and of purpose which pervades the whole and he is pennitted to trace the ~teps and pursue the laws by which the Omniscient Spirit has accomplished His work 24

Brewsters statement is a clear exposition of the principle of natural theology the idea that the organization of the natural world establishes the eXIstence of a Creator and proof of his benevolence wisdom and power The famous analogy fonnd in William Paley and other writers is to a watch The order complexity and harmonious functioning of the natmal universe manifests itself like the intricate mechanism of a pocket watch and it would no more make sense to speak of a universe without a maker and purpose than to propose the spontaneous creation of a pocket watch by accidental or random actions in nature2S Natural theology pervaded early nineteenthshycentury thinking about science in Protestant countries and nearly every British writer on the inductive sciences recognized natural theology as the ultimate goal of his investigations

Brevster was also a historian of science and was interested in the way scientific ideas we[e transmitted fTom generltion to generation Considering the history of photo1rraphy for The jlorth British Review in lR47 Brewster notes that the history of science presents us with very few instances in which great inventions or discoveries have burst upon the public view like meteors or startled the public mind their novelty and grandeur Typically he observes some sickly embryo of thought assumels] the form and beauty of a living truth when the public taste or the wants of society have stimulated research or created a demand for the productions of genius 2( Howshyever tor Brewster photography is one of those meteoric discoveries not a developmental one and both the Talbotype and the Daguerreotype had already embalmed the names of their distinguished inventors Brewster puts it)

us

DOlxas R IVitkel

in the popular imagination He argues for photographys uniqueness as a mode of by way of a conceit pertinent to the present discussion

memioned a different

delineates on canvas or the sculptor cmbodies in those images in their eye to which the law of vision an extental pbcc the photoshygrapher presents to Nature an artificial eye 1110rc powerful than his ow11 which receives the of external objects and imprints on its semitivc tablet with indeliblc lines their precise forms and the lights and shadows by which these forms are modified He thus permllellcy to details which the eye itself is too dull to appreClate and he represents Nature JS she is neltber pruned hy his taste nor decked by his il11aginJtion Fro1ll a11long the countless of surrounding objects vhich arc actually accu11lulated in pan of space he excludes by l1leans of his darkened all but dw one he wishes to perpetuate and he can thus exlnbit and tlx in succession all those floating and subtile forms which Epicurui fanCied and Lucretius

In a f()otnote to this passage Brewster gives Creechs translation of the lines in Lucretius to which he refers

Next for tis time Vhat those are we Which like thin films troll1 risc in streal11S

Play in the air and d~lJlCC upon the beal11s -A stream of forms fr0111 cnIY surtJce flows Which may be called the film or shell of those Because they bear the they show tbe frallle And tlgure of the bodies whence came

Brewsters is a citation of the eidolon theory ofperception which originates with Epicurus and Democritm and is developed by Lucretius in De ReYll1l1 Natum 2

J It 111aint~lins that small membranes emanate frorn objects that then produce their mirror image 011 flat surfaces and a visual impression of the perceived object in the observers eye Lucretius describes these emanations as imagines simulacra or (Ortires small skins that radiate from objects vithout having corporeal substance but an infinite number of which conform to every obJect This theory still claimed adherents in the nineteenth century Nadar reports that Balzac dreaded his daguerreotype taken for fear of of too many of these emanations and in his 1847 novel COllsill Pon5 COllshy

nected the daguerreotype with the capturing of just such schemata as he called them Another advocate was the American essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes who in the late 1850s proposed that photography might be taken as a confirmation of the Democritus skin theory31 Mike Weaver has noted the correspondence of Brewsters refershyence to one of the initial reviews of Talbots photogenic drawing process expounded by an anonymous reporter in the Saturday lvlaazinc of 13 April 1839 Here the fiter compares the spells of our scientific enchanter Mr Talbot with the character in Adelbert von Chamissos 1813 romance Pcrcv Schlc11lihl in which the principal character removes and sells his own shadow in exchange for a bag of good fortune The Saturday iHagazillcs

136

commentator notes how like Schlemihl the purchaser [of the photograph] now kneels down in the broad sunshylight detaches the shadow i0111 its owners heels folds it up and puts it in his pocket Talbot lifelong enthusiast of fairy tales and himself the author of Gothic romances about sorcerers and had met Chamisso in 18D in Berlin where he was director of the Botanic Gardens Since this took place three years before the publication of Talbots own Llcl1dary TallS the allusion in the Satrtrday viagazillc would not have escaped him Indeed in his Royal Society paper Talbor uses just this image - a hadow the most transitory of things the proverbial emblem of all that is and momentary shyas that which is fettered by the spells of his natural magic Clearly Brewter and Talbot did not actually subscribe to the eidolon concept They were trained in the Newtonian theory which held that light was composed of particles emitted by a source and after Thomas Youngs and Fresnels wave theories Talbot and eventually Brewster became adherents of the undulatory hypothesis From the standpoint of scientific method theIr support of wave theory distinguishes the British scientists from someone like Auguste Comte whose positive philosophy Brewster criticized in the 1838 RClJicI for its rejection of all such causal hypotheses

The trope that connects shadows the sun and Christianity in the Romantic period was readily sumshymoned for the purposes of constructing photographys authority in its fmt decade and was by no means dependent upon the British for articulation On the verso of an early French daguerreotype made by Bryon Dorgeval 15 a promotional label that expresses this idea vividly

Thi i1l1age which fixes 011 a mirror thc shadow itself of the sitter preserving their very 11ll1le their exact glance is it not to our eyes sweeter more sacred than a work all canvas A miniature is the work of a painter the daguerrean proof is the vvork of God How much 1110re would it b cherished by a parent or a friend tor it is the reflectioll of the shadow dle thought the deeds of the sitters soul united with God by the power of light

In the fIrSt decades of photographys existence images associating the emblematically with the sun proliferated in the popular press one of the most recurrent was the theme the Slln the artist (figure 2) Well established literary theological and mystical implications of the sun offered rich opportunities for commentators to elaborate upon the rhetoric of the photograph as an unprecedented of one not created by human hands but by naturally supernatural forces 36 John Wheeley Gutchs photo-collage of leaf prim (figure 3) bears the inscription The Glorious Sun stays his course and plays the alchemist line fiom Shakespeare Killg jo1111 that cleverly associates the solar-powered photographic process with chemical enchantment linking it to natural magic and English literary patrimony In the Christian tradishytion the sun (and light generally) is associated with Truth and with theological truth in particular as when Saul

T(llbots Nafliml 7I1agie

chaser i sunshy it up lUsiast lances [SSO in otanic before lusion

him st this s the 1)shy

nagic ibe to oman rtides mngs tuany hesis pport from

iophy 2 Scovill Manuflcturing Co lew York LIbel advertising daguerreotype plates

Private Collection c 1lSO

or its

I and sumshyphys ndent early IS a

Df the - is it tnvas proof rished ldow God

lages sun

Tent Well lOns Figure 3 John Wheeley Gutch The Gloriols 5111 Sla) ill his COllrse and Plays tllc bull collage ttors of salted paper prints 1 lS7 San Francisco Museull1 of Modern Art San Francisco

s an man on the road to Damascus sees the light Accordingly eley these romantic appropriations of sun-imagery were meant the to suggest that the photographic process might derive

Ilays from or have some special purchase 011 truth at a higher that plane the kind of truth intimated by Dorgevals label cess where the power of God-givell light is made to register agIc not simply outward appearance but also the sitters soul adishy Talbot employs this Apollonian neologism often in his uth writings for instance in the title of his second book of iaul photographs 51111 Piwnes ill Scotalld

But would Talbot himself have understood his discovery ill terms of natural theology On 5 February 1839 three days after the publication of his paper on photogenic drawing he declares himself ill a letter to his mother much amused that the Literary Gazette should think that this invention would affect the temporal interest of many When I get a large frank he continues I will send you Powells Tradition Unveiled being an attack 011 the Puseyites 38 That Talbot had a concern for the temporal interests that is to say the religious sentiments

137

DOUlZlas R Nickel

of the British public is made clear by his engagement with the Oxford Debates as indicated by the pamphlet he promises to send The Reverend Baden Powells Tradition Unveiled or An Exposition of the Pretensions and Tendency of Authoritative Teaching in the Church was just off the press on 5 February3~ The target of the pamphlet was Edward 13 Pusey canon of Christ Church and the Tractarians a group of Oxford clerics who called for a revival of ecclesiastical authority in the Church of England and a return to the rituals rites mysteries and orthodoxy of the early Church which suggested to some observers a leaning towards Rome Powell objected specifically to the Tractarians demands t()f the dissociation of and reason of Christianity and its evidences and in the part that would have interested Talbot argues that the Puseyites hostility to modern science had no basis

I ~111 disposed to believe that if there be any specLlI tendency in snentific pursuits as such to influence the religious opinions of those who follow them among the great of scientific 111cn it is for the IllOSt part precisely that to vhich I havc before referred a disposition rather to lvoid engaging in tlleological speculation and to in the established faith the spirit of whicb the traditionalists desire to cherish ___ I venture to express my belief that amongst the most eminently distinguished philosophers of the present day in this coumry there exists evell J profOlllldly religion spiriL4

Powell contends that the only footing for religious tlith is conviction and conviction reguires the kind of evidence that science and other forms of rational deliberation can provide Talbot would have agreed for in 1839 besides his announcement of photogenic drawing his current project was the drafting of a treatise entitled The Antiquity of the Book t~r Genesis Illustrated by Some New A~Rli1nents41 In this publication Talbot marshals textual data from the dassics to argue an dating for Genesis and thus supplies a philological context to the debate then transpiring over how to justify the evidence of geological time with the biblical account of a six-day creation Talbots case is ingenious he l11aintains that the Mosaic story of creation was handed down to the Greeks but in a form so conupted through translation and repetidon that the names were mangled and the subjects reworked into indigenous mythology He writes An attentive and unprejudiced examination of the ancient authorities will I think conshyvince every one that one of the chief objects of heathen worship was the SUN And what could be more natural than to adore the beneficent luminary the source of all the earths fertility and the fountain of perenniallight42

Talbot continues The next great divinity of the heathen to whom I shall advert is the Goddess of NATURE According to the most natural and expressive allegory these two divinides the Sun and the Earth were held to be the original parents of mankind and of all living things 43

He then suggests that Pandora described by Hesiod in the Greek story as the wife of the first-created man is actually the consequences of box-opening and apple-eating being correlated41 Talbot supports this conshy

138

jecture by tracing the etymology of the name Cybele the Grectt Mother and goddess of nature in ancient Asia Minor to the Sibyls who wandered the lands declaring future events and foretelling the destinies of men The Sibyls wrote their prophecies on leaves and released them to the vinds Talbot reports and highlighting the aspect to which Brewster was surely alluding when he described photogenic drawings as sibylline sketches Talbot recounts hovv the prophetesses evinced a dualisnl between human and divine or that both these opinions were maintained by turns respecting them The word Genesis itself is traced to Gynaeceas wife of Pan and mother of llacchus and Midas Genesis then vas in my opinion the goddess of Creative Nature among the ancient Greeks he concludes She was Creation Personified

Talbots theological speculations take for granted Powells assertion that the Scriptures can withstand rationshyalist inquiry without undermining their significance as divine revelatioll Natural theology held that the Almighty had bequeathed Man (wo great nooks the Scriptures and the Book of Nature It was understood Jmong Talbots peers that the scientists task was to unlock the Book of Nature to delve into its intricacies for the way they manifested Gods divine plan In a notebook entry for 3 MJrch 1H39 011 the same page vhere he muses upon photography as magic pictures Nature magnified by Herself and as one ofNatures Marvels Talbot scribbles the line Look through Nature to Natures God47 This

phrase comes from Alexander Popes Essay Oil lv1al1 of 1732 but was picked up in the Romantic period in particular byWordsworth4B Whatever Talbots reasons for jotting it down amidst his photographic wordshyplay it summarizes perfectly the mission of the natural theologian nature was not looked at it was looked through Talbot was a Baconian scientist in Thomas Kuhns defl11ition of the term According to Bacon nature vas like Proteus whose true identity lay concealed under a variety of external shapes and tC)[Jns until he was bound Nature exhibits herself more clearly under the trials and vexations of art than when left to herself he writes49

Baconian scientists conducted experiments to force nature out of its natural state the better to understand the realities it concealed Talbot regarded even modern methods sllch as inductive reasoning as tools demonstrating the unified preordained pattern of creation Such were the reflections which led me to the invention of this theory and which first impelled me to explore a path so deeply hidden Jmong natures secrets Talbot writes of his discovery of photogenic drawings They are impressed by Natures hand and what they want as yet of delicacy and finish of execution arises chiefly from our vant of sufficient knowledge of her laws 50

When contemplating any of the humble leaf images that inaugurated the photofTapbic medium (fIf11re 4) Talbot and his scientific colleagues would see III them what we may fail to appreciate order complexiry beauty and above all intentionality an incarnation in microcosm of the

sub lies in 1 by ofl

me eel the the

T(llbots Nafliml 7I1agie

chaser i sunshy it up lUsiast lances [SSO in otanic before lusion

him st this s the 1)shy

nagic ibe to oman rtides mngs tuany hesis pport from

iophy 2 Scovill Manuflcturing Co lew York LIbel advertising daguerreotype plates

Private Collection c 1lSO

or its

I and sumshyphys ndent early IS a

Df the - is it tnvas proof rished ldow God

lages sun

Tent Well lOns Figure 3 John Wheeley Gutch The Gloriols 5111 Sla) ill his COllrse and Plays tllc bull collage ttors of salted paper prints 1 lS7 San Francisco Museull1 of Modern Art San Francisco

s an man on the road to Damascus sees the light Accordingly eley these romantic appropriations of sun-imagery were meant the to suggest that the photographic process might derive

Ilays from or have some special purchase 011 truth at a higher that plane the kind of truth intimated by Dorgevals label cess where the power of God-givell light is made to register agIc not simply outward appearance but also the sitters soul adishy Talbot employs this Apollonian neologism often in his uth writings for instance in the title of his second book of iaul photographs 51111 Piwnes ill Scotalld

But would Talbot himself have understood his discovery ill terms of natural theology On 5 February 1839 three days after the publication of his paper on photogenic drawing he declares himself ill a letter to his mother much amused that the Literary Gazette should think that this invention would affect the temporal interest of many When I get a large frank he continues I will send you Powells Tradition Unveiled being an attack 011 the Puseyites 38 That Talbot had a concern for the temporal interests that is to say the religious sentiments

137

DOUlZlas R Nickel

of the British public is made clear by his engagement with the Oxford Debates as indicated by the pamphlet he promises to send The Reverend Baden Powells Tradition Unveiled or An Exposition of the Pretensions and Tendency of Authoritative Teaching in the Church was just off the press on 5 February3~ The target of the pamphlet was Edward 13 Pusey canon of Christ Church and the Tractarians a group of Oxford clerics who called for a revival of ecclesiastical authority in the Church of England and a return to the rituals rites mysteries and orthodoxy of the early Church which suggested to some observers a leaning towards Rome Powell objected specifically to the Tractarians demands t()f the dissociation of and reason of Christianity and its evidences and in the part that would have interested Talbot argues that the Puseyites hostility to modern science had no basis

I ~111 disposed to believe that if there be any specLlI tendency in snentific pursuits as such to influence the religious opinions of those who follow them among the great of scientific 111cn it is for the IllOSt part precisely that to vhich I havc before referred a disposition rather to lvoid engaging in tlleological speculation and to in the established faith the spirit of whicb the traditionalists desire to cherish ___ I venture to express my belief that amongst the most eminently distinguished philosophers of the present day in this coumry there exists evell J profOlllldly religion spiriL4

Powell contends that the only footing for religious tlith is conviction and conviction reguires the kind of evidence that science and other forms of rational deliberation can provide Talbot would have agreed for in 1839 besides his announcement of photogenic drawing his current project was the drafting of a treatise entitled The Antiquity of the Book t~r Genesis Illustrated by Some New A~Rli1nents41 In this publication Talbot marshals textual data from the dassics to argue an dating for Genesis and thus supplies a philological context to the debate then transpiring over how to justify the evidence of geological time with the biblical account of a six-day creation Talbots case is ingenious he l11aintains that the Mosaic story of creation was handed down to the Greeks but in a form so conupted through translation and repetidon that the names were mangled and the subjects reworked into indigenous mythology He writes An attentive and unprejudiced examination of the ancient authorities will I think conshyvince every one that one of the chief objects of heathen worship was the SUN And what could be more natural than to adore the beneficent luminary the source of all the earths fertility and the fountain of perenniallight42

Talbot continues The next great divinity of the heathen to whom I shall advert is the Goddess of NATURE According to the most natural and expressive allegory these two divinides the Sun and the Earth were held to be the original parents of mankind and of all living things 43

He then suggests that Pandora described by Hesiod in the Greek story as the wife of the first-created man is actually the consequences of box-opening and apple-eating being correlated41 Talbot supports this conshy

138

jecture by tracing the etymology of the name Cybele the Grectt Mother and goddess of nature in ancient Asia Minor to the Sibyls who wandered the lands declaring future events and foretelling the destinies of men The Sibyls wrote their prophecies on leaves and released them to the vinds Talbot reports and highlighting the aspect to which Brewster was surely alluding when he described photogenic drawings as sibylline sketches Talbot recounts hovv the prophetesses evinced a dualisnl between human and divine or that both these opinions were maintained by turns respecting them The word Genesis itself is traced to Gynaeceas wife of Pan and mother of llacchus and Midas Genesis then vas in my opinion the goddess of Creative Nature among the ancient Greeks he concludes She was Creation Personified

Talbots theological speculations take for granted Powells assertion that the Scriptures can withstand rationshyalist inquiry without undermining their significance as divine revelatioll Natural theology held that the Almighty had bequeathed Man (wo great nooks the Scriptures and the Book of Nature It was understood Jmong Talbots peers that the scientists task was to unlock the Book of Nature to delve into its intricacies for the way they manifested Gods divine plan In a notebook entry for 3 MJrch 1H39 011 the same page vhere he muses upon photography as magic pictures Nature magnified by Herself and as one ofNatures Marvels Talbot scribbles the line Look through Nature to Natures God47 This

phrase comes from Alexander Popes Essay Oil lv1al1 of 1732 but was picked up in the Romantic period in particular byWordsworth4B Whatever Talbots reasons for jotting it down amidst his photographic wordshyplay it summarizes perfectly the mission of the natural theologian nature was not looked at it was looked through Talbot was a Baconian scientist in Thomas Kuhns defl11ition of the term According to Bacon nature vas like Proteus whose true identity lay concealed under a variety of external shapes and tC)[Jns until he was bound Nature exhibits herself more clearly under the trials and vexations of art than when left to herself he writes49

Baconian scientists conducted experiments to force nature out of its natural state the better to understand the realities it concealed Talbot regarded even modern methods sllch as inductive reasoning as tools demonstrating the unified preordained pattern of creation Such were the reflections which led me to the invention of this theory and which first impelled me to explore a path so deeply hidden Jmong natures secrets Talbot writes of his discovery of photogenic drawings They are impressed by Natures hand and what they want as yet of delicacy and finish of execution arises chiefly from our vant of sufficient knowledge of her laws 50

When contemplating any of the humble leaf images that inaugurated the photofTapbic medium (fIf11re 4) Talbot and his scientific colleagues would see III them what we may fail to appreciate order complexiry beauty and above all intentionality an incarnation in microcosm of the

sub lies in 1 by ofl

me eel the the

DOUlZlas R Nickel

of the British public is made clear by his engagement with the Oxford Debates as indicated by the pamphlet he promises to send The Reverend Baden Powells Tradition Unveiled or An Exposition of the Pretensions and Tendency of Authoritative Teaching in the Church was just off the press on 5 February3~ The target of the pamphlet was Edward 13 Pusey canon of Christ Church and the Tractarians a group of Oxford clerics who called for a revival of ecclesiastical authority in the Church of England and a return to the rituals rites mysteries and orthodoxy of the early Church which suggested to some observers a leaning towards Rome Powell objected specifically to the Tractarians demands t()f the dissociation of and reason of Christianity and its evidences and in the part that would have interested Talbot argues that the Puseyites hostility to modern science had no basis

I ~111 disposed to believe that if there be any specLlI tendency in snentific pursuits as such to influence the religious opinions of those who follow them among the great of scientific 111cn it is for the IllOSt part precisely that to vhich I havc before referred a disposition rather to lvoid engaging in tlleological speculation and to in the established faith the spirit of whicb the traditionalists desire to cherish ___ I venture to express my belief that amongst the most eminently distinguished philosophers of the present day in this coumry there exists evell J profOlllldly religion spiriL4

Powell contends that the only footing for religious tlith is conviction and conviction reguires the kind of evidence that science and other forms of rational deliberation can provide Talbot would have agreed for in 1839 besides his announcement of photogenic drawing his current project was the drafting of a treatise entitled The Antiquity of the Book t~r Genesis Illustrated by Some New A~Rli1nents41 In this publication Talbot marshals textual data from the dassics to argue an dating for Genesis and thus supplies a philological context to the debate then transpiring over how to justify the evidence of geological time with the biblical account of a six-day creation Talbots case is ingenious he l11aintains that the Mosaic story of creation was handed down to the Greeks but in a form so conupted through translation and repetidon that the names were mangled and the subjects reworked into indigenous mythology He writes An attentive and unprejudiced examination of the ancient authorities will I think conshyvince every one that one of the chief objects of heathen worship was the SUN And what could be more natural than to adore the beneficent luminary the source of all the earths fertility and the fountain of perenniallight42

Talbot continues The next great divinity of the heathen to whom I shall advert is the Goddess of NATURE According to the most natural and expressive allegory these two divinides the Sun and the Earth were held to be the original parents of mankind and of all living things 43

He then suggests that Pandora described by Hesiod in the Greek story as the wife of the first-created man is actually the consequences of box-opening and apple-eating being correlated41 Talbot supports this conshy

138

jecture by tracing the etymology of the name Cybele the Grectt Mother and goddess of nature in ancient Asia Minor to the Sibyls who wandered the lands declaring future events and foretelling the destinies of men The Sibyls wrote their prophecies on leaves and released them to the vinds Talbot reports and highlighting the aspect to which Brewster was surely alluding when he described photogenic drawings as sibylline sketches Talbot recounts hovv the prophetesses evinced a dualisnl between human and divine or that both these opinions were maintained by turns respecting them The word Genesis itself is traced to Gynaeceas wife of Pan and mother of llacchus and Midas Genesis then vas in my opinion the goddess of Creative Nature among the ancient Greeks he concludes She was Creation Personified

Talbots theological speculations take for granted Powells assertion that the Scriptures can withstand rationshyalist inquiry without undermining their significance as divine revelatioll Natural theology held that the Almighty had bequeathed Man (wo great nooks the Scriptures and the Book of Nature It was understood Jmong Talbots peers that the scientists task was to unlock the Book of Nature to delve into its intricacies for the way they manifested Gods divine plan In a notebook entry for 3 MJrch 1H39 011 the same page vhere he muses upon photography as magic pictures Nature magnified by Herself and as one ofNatures Marvels Talbot scribbles the line Look through Nature to Natures God47 This

phrase comes from Alexander Popes Essay Oil lv1al1 of 1732 but was picked up in the Romantic period in particular byWordsworth4B Whatever Talbots reasons for jotting it down amidst his photographic wordshyplay it summarizes perfectly the mission of the natural theologian nature was not looked at it was looked through Talbot was a Baconian scientist in Thomas Kuhns defl11ition of the term According to Bacon nature vas like Proteus whose true identity lay concealed under a variety of external shapes and tC)[Jns until he was bound Nature exhibits herself more clearly under the trials and vexations of art than when left to herself he writes49

Baconian scientists conducted experiments to force nature out of its natural state the better to understand the realities it concealed Talbot regarded even modern methods sllch as inductive reasoning as tools demonstrating the unified preordained pattern of creation Such were the reflections which led me to the invention of this theory and which first impelled me to explore a path so deeply hidden Jmong natures secrets Talbot writes of his discovery of photogenic drawings They are impressed by Natures hand and what they want as yet of delicacy and finish of execution arises chiefly from our vant of sufficient knowledge of her laws 50

When contemplating any of the humble leaf images that inaugurated the photofTapbic medium (fIf11re 4) Talbot and his scientific colleagues would see III them what we may fail to appreciate order complexiry beauty and above all intentionality an incarnation in microcosm of the

sub lies in 1 by ofl

me eel the the

bele t Asia laring The them lspect ribed ounts uman ained self is cchus I the eeks

anted Figure 4 William Henry Fox Talbot untitled photogenic drawing L 184() International Museum Ltionshy of Photography Eastman HOllse Rochester

ce as Lighty

sublimity of all creation Implicit in the Talbot example 5 and lies what is made explicit in a photogenic drawing created Ibots in 1839 by the elderly German scientistJohan Carl Enslen ok of by superimposing an oak leaf and a lithographed head they of Christ (figure 5)51 Talbot needed no explanation as ay for member of the scientific clerisy his methodological conshyupon cepts and epistemological presumptions vere identical to ~d by those of natural theology The photogenic drawing like ibbles the leafs process of photosynthesis was understood toThis

an of d in asons IordshyHural ooked uhns ~ was der a )Und

sand tes 49

ature llities hods the the eory ~eply

f his essed [cacy 1t of

lages albot t we and Figure 5 Johan Carl Enslen untitled photogenic lH40 fthe University Library Tlibingen

partake of the marvellous responding to divine light and by its very workings manifesting divine intelligence in giving nature as she was in Brewsters words it could not help but automatically register something of the perfectioll that nature represented In so far as the chemical mechanism of photography W15 still not fully grasped at the time of the 1839 annOUllcement the technique vas for Talbot indeed like the Sibyl human and divine empirical and esoteric It united the two great divinitiesshythe Sun and Nature --- with Cartesian optics to engender a new form of natural magic

We now see Talbot and his science through the filter of modernism and the post-Darwinian professionalization of scientific culture but it is worth remembering that the word science itself came illto common usage only in the 18305 (Talbots friend William Xhewell coined the tenn scientist around this time natural philosopher being the more common designation heretofore) Talbots invention entered society in the twilight of 3 kind of science that understood the Book of Nature to be an inexhaustible repository of marvels wonders and secrets infinitely deep and ultimately unknowable in its totality The D31inian period to follow would couch the scientist as an explorer and nature as an unknown country - by implication a country that will eventually be mapped settled and put to use For most of its history photography has been caught in the latter paradigm and confused with truth Perhaps the moment has arrived when we can appreciate that the history of photography is not about truth but about belief and that Talbots photographs are best understood when we appreciate the cosmology and belief-system that brought them into being

Notes

ImiddotIl-nry Fox Trllbot SOllJe (J(()trllf (~l rhe 1ff

London R and J E Taylor 183) as III

liJ~cs cd Bel110nt Newbll Ntw York Museum 19HO 25

139

in

invoking William Whewdll Histor) of the llldwlipc SciCIW_ Parker 1 S37 the most recent and thorough exposition of the inductive rnethod aVJilablc Jnd in many ways J corrective to John Herschels Preliminary Discourse lHi the Study tf middotaturtJl IllllomiddotI1

London LongI11ltlJl l~(es Onne Brown amp Green IX30 approach might best be described inductIve-deductive Whewdl was J110rc of Kantian stressing concepts and ideas oVer l-lerchcliJI1 empiricism In Whvells schem the three steps of illduction included (1) the explication of J COtlcltpt (2) the rolligation of [Jets by nl(-ans of that and (3) verification by Colligltion was orifgt1ual cOlltributJon by he 111eanr the

could identity a pattern to ~celnil)gly unrebted (tS Talbot puts it) to consequences altogether

unexpected rl1110Le froUl usual experienct and contrJry to almost universal beliee Whewell was lllade lrofesor of Moral Theology at

in IH37 ] of in febtiollship to poitivist thought i~

Carol Annstrong SCCIlCS ill d Library Rcadit~J tfl(O Plwtfraph ill the 8th)_

18rJ-1875 Cambridge MA MIT Pre 199H 4 Newhall 25

TJlbot Photogenic Oraving LhcfI1ry Catcttc no 11S0 (2 1 K39) TlIbot here likens his procss also [0 the Genius 0[

Lamp in its (74) ( Sec Larry J Remrds of fhe )WII ( I(lf(~rapI) TgtOfs Icbklt

P amp Q Cambridge University Pres 199635 7 4 February 1839 Talbot fi)r the copy of

beautIful discoveries Unwtcrs fmiddotderence is [0

ancient female orades asociared with fv1y thanks

to Dr Larry Schaaf for making thill source to lIle

H Brewster to Talbot 12 February 1IlYJ above Brewster herc discusses his ovn process for pain ring pictures upon blood

I There is onlething supernatural going on herc~ tmiddotlerschd to Talbot

16 March 1 H41 tboye 10 New Publicatiom AlhnWfIIlrI no n7 (2 August lK45) 771 The

phrase vas not a original to the reviewer hOVeTL 1 n 1832 David Brewster incident of what he terms modern

Emperor BISel ofMacedollla a nllrror of his -011 See Urcyster LpoundttCf 011

AlaQic o Sir I+alcr Sem Hrl London J Murrav 1832 (U The Sp(YtatOf vriting of rJaguerres announCCl11ent ill rv1anh 1H)t) uses silnillf lanbluge An invtntioll hls recently bcet 111adc public in Paris [hat seems more like SOllle marvel of a fairy talc or delusion of llecrolnancy than a practical reality Jt al110unts to nothing less than

111aking light produce pefnunCllt pictures Cited by ReaU1110nt

Ncwhall Eightecn Thirty-Nine The Birth or Photography 111

Dis((wcry lid lllvwtioll Malibu J Paul Getty Museum

11 H Fox Talbot T Pencil of lturc London Longman Brown Green amp Longll1ans 1844 unpagillated

12 Ibid 13 See Thomas Wedgwood and Sir HUlllphy Accollnt of a

Method of Paintings Upon Gb and Profiles by the Agency Light Upon Nitfltue of Silver f lite R)I Jusliwlil f Grcal Britdill 1 (1802) J7()-7t reprinted in Newhall lS-Ir

14 I discuss this aspect of Barthess prolen n greater detail ill Rolalld Thrthes and the Silapshot Hiwry (f Ph(1emphJ 243 (Autumn 20(O) 232-35

15 See Vil1iJm E31110n ScicHce and the Snrct~middot (f alure Hooks StCIcts in Mediellal alld Earl) A4dcnr CIIillre Princeton Princetoll University Pres 1994 121 -22

16 John Baptist Porta The Preface to the Reader dluml Hagie fu XX Hook London 1651- edition

17 Anbrloo and Smart Clark eds Hiuh[mr lIId gtIWi ill Elllvpe lIId Niuctcelllh Ccmllric Philadelphia University of

PreIS 199) 22 IH On Brewster see HIII)r ofSdel(c Sir nwid Brellslcr 1781-1868 cds

Alison ~vlorrison-L()w and] R R Clmstie Edinburgh Royal Scottish Museum Studies 1914

19 Brewster to Forbes 23 February I H3) Sr Andrews University Library quoted in Graham Smith Disciples or L(~hl P(JOgraph 111 Ihe BrcwJler Alhl1l11 Malibu J Paul Getty Museum 19)027

20 Brewster ultcrs 011 alural (Id~c 14

21 Talbot Ilukes the eye--calJwra amlogy in Plate Ill Artides of China Till Pcndl of XlIrc I I

22 Brewster ullm 011 llm1 n Robert Chambers VCil(QC or

J Churchill 1844 Hugh Miller Johnstone amp Hunter 1H47

24 Morrison-Low llld Christie r lilliJll1 PJlcy ~atHraf [hcolt

Amiblltls of the Deif) Gllicactl 1imiddot I

Wilks amp Taylor 1802 26 David Brewster Photography

(August IIl47) 24H 27 Ibid 249 2K Ibid

I H lalura HiiIM) d Crcalioll London

fool-prims f the Cmur London

n Evidenrcs (~r rfrc ExisteJlce and 11( AppcJai(CS of 111(lt London

nrc orth Brltis RcviclI no 15

29 See Hubertus von Al1lelunxcn Die AII(~rIhclic Lcil ncr Erfimltmg d JhNoQrpilie dr(h lVilialll Hmry I Tlibor Berlin Dirk Nishen 18 H

0 See Nldar My Lite as a Photographer 11)0019 1l1d Rosalind Krausss discussion NIlttlf Ocror (Summer I97H) 2947

31 Oliver Wendell The Stereoscope and tht Stereograph Allantic AlonlMy (june 1 H59) 73H reprintel in Newhall 11101(Qraph) Essayl awl iJ1ltJgcs 53

32 Salllrdo) 1i~l~iIlC 14435 (13 April It(I) 139 Mih Weaver with 1 Camen in Hellr) Fox Ti1lbot Srlacd exls lt1( Ox)[(l Clio Press 1 ))2 6

34 Morrison-Low and Christie 35 Robert Flynn Johnson and Robert Hmhorn Shimshak Ifte j)l1lfY of

L(Jhf )aXIICIT(orypcs frollJ till RobCl1 Hdr3hHtI ShiliLhak Collertion San francisco Fine Am MUSCUlUS 1Jtl(i 9

3( The correspondence of this tnedieval and ilenaisll1ce Veronicas Veil or WIWlrof)()1 the made not bv hu man hand - was noted by Relleclions Olf P(l~raJI1) ew York Hill amp Wang lJH1 H2 For fuller discllssion of the thelie sec Joseph Leo Koerner nc middot1011111)1 Self Porfflitlfrc iff CerHian ((Iwiss(tlcc Arl Chicago University of Press 1993

37 Genoa Shepley kindly made tlllS source known to me 3H Talbot to Lady Elizabeth february 1K9 (Li39-H) 39 Baden Powell Traditioll CfIcictI or a ExposiriOIl or tire Prftellsions and

TClIdelley orAUllwrilarive l((lril(~ ill Ihe Chllrch LOlldon 1 January I H39 40 Ibid 64 41 H Fox Talbo[ Tire ll1fiquif) of the Hook of emesis IIIustrafed by Some

[ielll A~ltUltleIlfS London Longnull C)rll1c Green Urown amp Longman HO)

42 Ibid 9 43 Ibid )-11)

44 Talbots efforts at Gothic romance include The Magic Mirror a tale on tbe Pandora legend in which sorcerers daughter UllCOYl a mirror meant to veiled The Magic Mirror L()ftldtlFY Tafes in Verse awl Prose l colerfed hy H rox TOfhd Esq London James Ridgway IH311

45 Talbot llmiquit) 22 46 Ibid 40-41 47 Schaaf Rewrds or Ihe DOITIl of p(1f~mphy 48 Alexander Pope All 1smiddot() 01 Hall ill Ir Epimiddottlcs (1732) Epistle IV

line 332 See mv discussion in Natures Supernaturahsm William Henry Fox Talbot end Botanical Illustration in illicrsmiolls Lilhography

d tie Traditios 4 Prilllllkif~~ ed Ka[hken Stewart University of New Mexico Press 199H 15-23

49 50 51 Enslen sent this image to Talbot ill September 1840 See Enslen to

Talbot 10 September jHIO Lacock Abbey ILA40-691 On Enslen see the exhibition catalogue Silber liJld Sal LfJr Friiheil der POloyraphie illl d(llISciClJ SprflrhrafJl11 Cologne Edition Brdus 1989 127middot-41

Fi ne

Tal ord cuI del to] a c an gra

Hrs140

in

invoking William Whewdll Histor) of the llldwlipc SciCIW_ Parker 1 S37 the most recent and thorough exposition of the inductive rnethod aVJilablc Jnd in many ways J corrective to John Herschels Preliminary Discourse lHi the Study tf middotaturtJl IllllomiddotI1

London LongI11ltlJl l~(es Onne Brown amp Green IX30 approach might best be described inductIve-deductive Whewdl was J110rc of Kantian stressing concepts and ideas oVer l-lerchcliJI1 empiricism In Whvells schem the three steps of illduction included (1) the explication of J COtlcltpt (2) the rolligation of [Jets by nl(-ans of that and (3) verification by Colligltion was orifgt1ual cOlltributJon by he 111eanr the

could identity a pattern to ~celnil)gly unrebted (tS Talbot puts it) to consequences altogether

unexpected rl1110Le froUl usual experienct and contrJry to almost universal beliee Whewell was lllade lrofesor of Moral Theology at

in IH37 ] of in febtiollship to poitivist thought i~

Carol Annstrong SCCIlCS ill d Library Rcadit~J tfl(O Plwtfraph ill the 8th)_

18rJ-1875 Cambridge MA MIT Pre 199H 4 Newhall 25

TJlbot Photogenic Oraving LhcfI1ry Catcttc no 11S0 (2 1 K39) TlIbot here likens his procss also [0 the Genius 0[

Lamp in its (74) ( Sec Larry J Remrds of fhe )WII ( I(lf(~rapI) TgtOfs Icbklt

P amp Q Cambridge University Pres 199635 7 4 February 1839 Talbot fi)r the copy of

beautIful discoveries Unwtcrs fmiddotderence is [0

ancient female orades asociared with fv1y thanks

to Dr Larry Schaaf for making thill source to lIle

H Brewster to Talbot 12 February 1IlYJ above Brewster herc discusses his ovn process for pain ring pictures upon blood

I There is onlething supernatural going on herc~ tmiddotlerschd to Talbot

16 March 1 H41 tboye 10 New Publicatiom AlhnWfIIlrI no n7 (2 August lK45) 771 The

phrase vas not a original to the reviewer hOVeTL 1 n 1832 David Brewster incident of what he terms modern

Emperor BISel ofMacedollla a nllrror of his -011 See Urcyster LpoundttCf 011

AlaQic o Sir I+alcr Sem Hrl London J Murrav 1832 (U The Sp(YtatOf vriting of rJaguerres announCCl11ent ill rv1anh 1H)t) uses silnillf lanbluge An invtntioll hls recently bcet 111adc public in Paris [hat seems more like SOllle marvel of a fairy talc or delusion of llecrolnancy than a practical reality Jt al110unts to nothing less than

111aking light produce pefnunCllt pictures Cited by ReaU1110nt

Ncwhall Eightecn Thirty-Nine The Birth or Photography 111

Dis((wcry lid lllvwtioll Malibu J Paul Getty Museum

11 H Fox Talbot T Pencil of lturc London Longman Brown Green amp Longll1ans 1844 unpagillated

12 Ibid 13 See Thomas Wedgwood and Sir HUlllphy Accollnt of a

Method of Paintings Upon Gb and Profiles by the Agency Light Upon Nitfltue of Silver f lite R)I Jusliwlil f Grcal Britdill 1 (1802) J7()-7t reprinted in Newhall lS-Ir

14 I discuss this aspect of Barthess prolen n greater detail ill Rolalld Thrthes and the Silapshot Hiwry (f Ph(1emphJ 243 (Autumn 20(O) 232-35

15 See Vil1iJm E31110n ScicHce and the Snrct~middot (f alure Hooks StCIcts in Mediellal alld Earl) A4dcnr CIIillre Princeton Princetoll University Pres 1994 121 -22

16 John Baptist Porta The Preface to the Reader dluml Hagie fu XX Hook London 1651- edition

17 Anbrloo and Smart Clark eds Hiuh[mr lIId gtIWi ill Elllvpe lIId Niuctcelllh Ccmllric Philadelphia University of

PreIS 199) 22 IH On Brewster see HIII)r ofSdel(c Sir nwid Brellslcr 1781-1868 cds

Alison ~vlorrison-L()w and] R R Clmstie Edinburgh Royal Scottish Museum Studies 1914

19 Brewster to Forbes 23 February I H3) Sr Andrews University Library quoted in Graham Smith Disciples or L(~hl P(JOgraph 111 Ihe BrcwJler Alhl1l11 Malibu J Paul Getty Museum 19)027

20 Brewster ultcrs 011 alural (Id~c 14

21 Talbot Ilukes the eye--calJwra amlogy in Plate Ill Artides of China Till Pcndl of XlIrc I I

22 Brewster ullm 011 llm1 n Robert Chambers VCil(QC or

J Churchill 1844 Hugh Miller Johnstone amp Hunter 1H47

24 Morrison-Low llld Christie r lilliJll1 PJlcy ~atHraf [hcolt

Amiblltls of the Deif) Gllicactl 1imiddot I

Wilks amp Taylor 1802 26 David Brewster Photography

(August IIl47) 24H 27 Ibid 249 2K Ibid

I H lalura HiiIM) d Crcalioll London

fool-prims f the Cmur London

n Evidenrcs (~r rfrc ExisteJlce and 11( AppcJai(CS of 111(lt London

nrc orth Brltis RcviclI no 15

29 See Hubertus von Al1lelunxcn Die AII(~rIhclic Lcil ncr Erfimltmg d JhNoQrpilie dr(h lVilialll Hmry I Tlibor Berlin Dirk Nishen 18 H

0 See Nldar My Lite as a Photographer 11)0019 1l1d Rosalind Krausss discussion NIlttlf Ocror (Summer I97H) 2947

31 Oliver Wendell The Stereoscope and tht Stereograph Allantic AlonlMy (june 1 H59) 73H reprintel in Newhall 11101(Qraph) Essayl awl iJ1ltJgcs 53

32 Salllrdo) 1i~l~iIlC 14435 (13 April It(I) 139 Mih Weaver with 1 Camen in Hellr) Fox Ti1lbot Srlacd exls lt1( Ox)[(l Clio Press 1 ))2 6

34 Morrison-Low and Christie 35 Robert Flynn Johnson and Robert Hmhorn Shimshak Ifte j)l1lfY of

L(Jhf )aXIICIT(orypcs frollJ till RobCl1 Hdr3hHtI ShiliLhak Collertion San francisco Fine Am MUSCUlUS 1Jtl(i 9

3( The correspondence of this tnedieval and ilenaisll1ce Veronicas Veil or WIWlrof)()1 the made not bv hu man hand - was noted by Relleclions Olf P(l~raJI1) ew York Hill amp Wang lJH1 H2 For fuller discllssion of the thelie sec Joseph Leo Koerner nc middot1011111)1 Self Porfflitlfrc iff CerHian ((Iwiss(tlcc Arl Chicago University of Press 1993

37 Genoa Shepley kindly made tlllS source known to me 3H Talbot to Lady Elizabeth february 1K9 (Li39-H) 39 Baden Powell Traditioll CfIcictI or a ExposiriOIl or tire Prftellsions and

TClIdelley orAUllwrilarive l((lril(~ ill Ihe Chllrch LOlldon 1 January I H39 40 Ibid 64 41 H Fox Talbo[ Tire ll1fiquif) of the Hook of emesis IIIustrafed by Some

[ielll A~ltUltleIlfS London Longnull C)rll1c Green Urown amp Longman HO)

42 Ibid 9 43 Ibid )-11)

44 Talbots efforts at Gothic romance include The Magic Mirror a tale on tbe Pandora legend in which sorcerers daughter UllCOYl a mirror meant to veiled The Magic Mirror L()ftldtlFY Tafes in Verse awl Prose l colerfed hy H rox TOfhd Esq London James Ridgway IH311

45 Talbot llmiquit) 22 46 Ibid 40-41 47 Schaaf Rewrds or Ihe DOITIl of p(1f~mphy 48 Alexander Pope All 1smiddot() 01 Hall ill Ir Epimiddottlcs (1732) Epistle IV

line 332 See mv discussion in Natures Supernaturahsm William Henry Fox Talbot end Botanical Illustration in illicrsmiolls Lilhography

d tie Traditios 4 Prilllllkif~~ ed Ka[hken Stewart University of New Mexico Press 199H 15-23

49 50 51 Enslen sent this image to Talbot ill September 1840 See Enslen to

Talbot 10 September jHIO Lacock Abbey ILA40-691 On Enslen see the exhibition catalogue Silber liJld Sal LfJr Friiheil der POloyraphie illl d(llISciClJ SprflrhrafJl11 Cologne Edition Brdus 1989 127middot-41

Fi ne

Tal ord cuI del to] a c an gra

Hrs140