peter galassi before photography

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Peter Galassi, Before Photography

Photography was not a bastard left by scienceon the doorstep of art, but

a legitimate child of the Western pictorial tradition.Peter Galassi

Photographic media – traditional and digital photography, film, television, video, and the

internet – dominate global art and communication today. And painting no longer enjoys anythinglike the preeminent position it held in mid-nineteenth century Europe. Ever since painter PaulDelaroche s purported e!clamation at the birth of photography – "#rom today, painting is dead$%

– art critics have been predicting the end of painting. &ndeed, the invention of photographycoincides historically 'ith the onset of the never-ending end and (crisis% of painting – the crisisthat spurred the radical formal innovations of modern painting from )anet to *ackson Pollock.

Although it is a mistake to believe that photography single-handedly caused the transformationfrom classical to modernist painting, from mimetic illusion to e!perimental modes of realism andabstraction, the historical coincidence of the birth of photography and the crisis of painting is far

Figure 1.55. Artist uncknown. The Principle of Linear Perspective. Engraving, 10 x 8 ¾ in (25. x 22.2! c"#.$rook %a&lor, New Principles of Linear Perspective or,the Art of Designing on a Plane (London, 1811 . 'ale

niversit& )i*rar&, +ew aven, -onnecticut.



from innocent. #rom Daguerre and +albot s public reports of their discoveries in /, thehistories of painting and photography have been ine!tricably tangled. 0ur job is to grasp thecreative historical dynamics of the relationship along 'ith the significance and scale of thenineteenth-century revolution in art technology.

According to Peter 1alassi, 'e are looking at an evolution in art, not a revolution. &n thefollo'ing essay he discredits the notion that photography radically disrupted the history of painting. 2ith 'ell-spun logic he traces the pedigree of photography back to early 3enaissance&taly and the discovery of linear perspective. 1alassi is persuaded that photography is (alegitimate child of the 2estern pictorial tradition.( 2hile other historians of photography havelooked for its origins in the biographies of individual inventors, advances of science andtechnology, social and political transformations, or the mid-nineteenth century Positivistpreoccupation 'ith realism, this essay looks instead at the longer mimetic tradition of the 2est,to (four-hundred-odd years of perspective s hegemony over 2estern painting.( &n other 'ords,for a tradition uni4uely 5of all the 'orld s aesthetic traditions6 obsessed 'ith visual mimesis –'ith seeing, comprehending, representing the 'orld as it really is and e!actly translating thatthree-dimensional reality onto a t'o-dimensional surface – photography, after all that, seems apredictable end.

0f great value for our study of modern art is 1alassi s historical analysis of vision inpainting and of linear perspective as a symbolic form. +he insight that vision is cultural andhistorical 'ill help us see that style itself – regardless of medium – has meaning . 2e need suchan a'areness to go beyond modern subject matter to grasp e!actly 'hat it is that makes anart'ork look (modern.%

7e sure that you can see for yourself the comparisons 1alassi is making8 don t just takehis 'ord for it. 2hat are the t'o polar conceptions of perspective in 2estern painting9 2hat arethe (normative procedures( of 3enaissance and modern painting9 :o' could they have led tothe invention of photography9 2hy is the photographer unable to make a picture follo'ingPaolo ;ccello s early 3enaissance procedure9 <ould a photographer follo' Edgar Degasperspective system9 Do today s digital photographic processes change the terms of 1alassi sargument9 &s the photograph "the epitome of realism%9

Our selection is from Peter Galassi, Before Photography: Painting and the In ention of Photography!"ew #ork: $he %useum of %odern &rt, '()'* pp ''+').

For Furt er /ea ing

<rary, *onathan. $echni ues of the Obser er: On -ision and %odernity in the "ineteenthentury 5<ambridge, )assachusetts= )&+ Press, //>6.

:ockney, David. /ecret 0nowledge: 1edisco ering the 2ost $echni ues of the Old %asters 5?e' @ork=Penguin Putnam, >> 6.

*ay, )artin. "Bcopic 3egimes of )odernity.% &n -ision and -isuality. ed. :al #oster 5Beattle= 7ay Press,/ 6.

Panofsky, Er'in. Perspecti e as /ymbolic 3orm . +ranslated by <hristopher 2ood 5?e' @ork= Cone7ooks, // 6.



Perhaps the most curious aspect of the race to invent photography is that it 'as not a

race until it 'as over. 2ith the e!ception of Daguerre and ?i pce 5'ho became partners6, none

of the four or five serious contestants 'as a'are of the others. Despite this fact, the finish 'as

remarkably close. &ndeed, the identity of the 'inner and the date of the finish depend on 'hich

characteristic of the medium is chosen as salient. +here are respectable arguments for +homas2edg'ood in > , ?ic phore ?i pce in , 2illiam :enry #o! +albot in F, and G.-*.-).

Daguerre in F or / 5'hen the invention 'as publicly announced6.

+his apparent coincidence is all the more striking because, despite the technical

character of the invention, 'e cannot point to any technical innovation as a catalyst. All of the

inventors simply combined t'o scientific principles that had been kno'n for 4uite some time.

+he first of these 'as optical. Gight passing through a small aperture in one 'all of a dark room

5or "camera obscura%6 projects an image on the opposite 'all. +he camera obscura had been a

familiar tool of artists and scientists from the si!teenth century. #rom the eighteenth, it had beencommon in portable form, designed to project on paper or glass an image that the artist could

trace. +he second principle 'as chemical. &n H H, *ohann :einrich BchulIe had sho'n that

certain chemicals, especially silver halides, turn dark 'hen e!posed to light. +he inventors of

photography used such chemicals to render permanent the insubstantial image formed in the

camera obscura.

"<onsidering that kno'ledge of the chemical as 'ell as the optical principles of

photography 'as fairly 'idespread follo'ing BchulIe s e!periment – 'hich found its 'ay not

only into serious scientific treatises but also into popular books of amusing parlour tricks – thecircumstance that photography 'as not invented earlier remains the greatest mystery in its

history.% #or :elmut and Alison 1ernsheim, 'ho 'rote these 'ords, and for most other

historians of photography, the mystery persists because its solution is considered to be primarily

scientific. +he bulk of 'riting on photography s prehistory, even in 'orks by art historians, has

been technical. +he increasing popularity of the camera obscura and the proliferation of other

mechanical aids to dra'ing have been traced in detail. +hese developments are obviously

relevant to the invention of photography. Bo too is the cumulative search for ne' methods of

pictorial reproduction, 'hich played, for e!ample, a large role in the e!periments of 2edg'oodand ?i pce. 7ut these technical e!periments and enthusiasms ans'er only one side of the

4uestion.

?o one has proposed that the invention of photography 'as a mistake or an isolated

flash of genius. )ost modern studies of the individual inventors treat their careers as

representative rather than idiosyncratic, and even the driest technical histories implicitly



ackno'ledge that photography 'as a product of shared traditions and aspirations. +he best

'riters have recogniIed that these traditions are social and artistic as 'ell as scientific.

?evertheless, the problem in this form has received less attention than it deserves, perhaps

because it cannot be solved by the analysis of a single biography or se4uence of scientific or

artistic influences.+here is little doubt that reference to the great social and political transformations of the

late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is an important feature of any ade4uate solution.

:o'ever, this aspect of the problem is difficult, since hindsight too readily concludes that the

early uses of photography satisfied needs that e!isted before its invention. Perhaps it is more

logical to suggest that the period spa'ned a great volume of speculative tinkering, 'hose spirit

and products fostered as 'ell as ans'ered such needs.

+he social conte!t of the invention of photography is important. :ere, ho'ever, & propose

to concentrate on the narro'er 5although kindred6 issue of photography s relationship to thetraditional arts. Previous studies of this issue have yielded many useful facts, but the principles

under 'hich the facts have been gathered and organiIed remain largely une!amined. +he

principles have changed little since :einrich Bch'arI s representative article of /J/, "Art and

Photography= #orerunners and &nfluences.% +he article s title reflects its divided conception. +he

first half traces the history of mechanical aids to post-3enaissance art, especially the camera

obscura, 'hose increasing use, Bch'arI argues, led to the invention of photography. Abruptly

inverting his argument, Bch'arI then lists nineteenth-century paintings derived directly from

photographs.+he neat split in Bch'arI s method is symptomatic of the prevailing understanding of

photography s relationship to painting. 3egarded essentially as a child of technical rather than

aesthetic traditions, the medium is inevitably considered an outsider, 'hich proceeded to disrupt

the course of painting. +he e!treme corollary of this conception is the notion that photography

adopted 5or usurped6 the representational function of painting, allo'ing 5or forcing6 painting to

become abstract. +his argument, no' discredited, seems to have been launched around />>

by painters, 'ho used it to justify their rejection of nineteenth-century naturalism. +he argument

has its roots in the conviction K born in / K that photography is the epitome of realism.#e' today 'ould accept this notion 'ithout 4ualification, yet it has remained indispensable to

most 'riters 'ho sense a need to supplement the scientific rationale for the invention of

photography 'ith an aesthetic one. Devotees of the camera obscura e!plain the machine s

gro'ing popularity as a symptom of a ne' thirst for accurate description. 0thers point to the



precision of 7iedermeier painting or the spectacular illusion of Daguerre s Diorama. +he

position is summariIed in 7eaumont ?e'hall s 'ords= "+he fever for reality 'as running high.%

+his formulation is not untrue, but it is vague and ahistorical. Bo often have 2estern

artists earned the label "realist% and so various are their achievements that the label has

meaning only in a historical frame'ork. Buch a frame'ork, an admirable one, e!ists for the3ealist movement of the mid-nineteenth century. :o'ever, the pre-photographic realism that

?e'hall and others refer to is a patch'ork of disparate e!pressions, defined not by artistic

tradition but by the very invention it is meant to e!plain. &t is, in other 'ords, a tautology, 'hich

in effect remands the interpretive burden to the scientific tradition. +he object here is to sho'

that photography 'as not a bastard left by science on the doorstep of art, but a legitimate child

of the 2estern pictorial tradition.

+he ultimate origins of photography – both technical and aesthetic – lie in the fifteenth-

century invention of linear perspective. +he technical side of this statement is simple=photography is nothing more than a means for automatically producing pictures in perfect

perspective. +he aesthetic side is more comple! and is meaningful only in broader historical

terms.

3enaissance perspective adopted vision as the sole basis for representation= every

perspective picture represents its subject as it 'ould be seen from a particular point of vie' at a

particular moment. )easured against the accumulated options of prior pictorial art, this is a

narro' conception. :o'ever, in the four-hundred-odd years of perspective s hegemony over

2estern painting, artists managed to construe it in an e!traordinary variety of 'ays. Luite apartfrom the issue of their subjects, the pictures of Paolo ;ccello, *an Mermeer, and Edgar Degas,

for e!ample, are very different in appearance. +o a great e!tent these differences may be 5and

have been6 understood in terms of the principle underlying each painter s manipulation of the

perspective system or, in other 'ords, the 'ay each conceived the role of vision in art. +hese

conceptions, moreover, did not develop at random, but form a coherent history.

7iedermeier refers to bourgeois life and art in 1ermanic cities like <openhagen, 7erlin, Mienna and Prague in themid-nineteenth century. 7etter kno'n for domestic furniture and interior designs, the paintings, of typical middle-classsubjects 5family portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, and still lifes6, 'ere generally small, narrative, and highlydetailed in style.

Figure 1.5 . Piero ella Francesca. An !deal Townscape, c. 1 30. Panel, 2! 4 x 38 ¾ (56. 6 x 200.01 c"#. Pala77oucale, r*ino, 9tal&.



Bome familiar features of that history are illustrated in the comparison of the Ideal

$ownscape 5#igure .F 6 from the circle of Piero della #rancesca NO and Emanuel de 2itte s

Protestant Gothic hurch 5#igure .FH6 NO . +he subject of each picture is a regular, manmade

structure, symmetrical along an a!is. +he earlier painter adopted this as his a!is of vision, so

that the picture, too, is symmetrical. &t presents the ground plan of the architecture almost asclearly as a map. +he relative siIes of the buildings are plainly sho'n and may be checked

precisely by reference to the pavement, 'hich is a logical guide to the 'hole space of the

picture.

De 2itte, by contrast, chose a point of vie' 'ell

off the a!is of symmetry of the church8 and his line of

sight is not parallel to that a!is but obli4ue, and arbitrary

in regard to the structure. +he frame also is differently

conceived. +he &talian vie' accommodates the entirepiaIIa, but de 2itte s picture includes only a portion of

the interior of the church. And, just as the point and a!is

of vie' are indifferent to the plan of the building, so this

portion is a fragment unrelated to the rational form of the

church. +o this conception of a narro' slice of

space, de 2itte added that of a specific slice of time.

;nlike the &talian painter, 'ho imposed on his vie' the

clarity of even light, de 2itte accepted the momentaryplay of light and shade, 'hich obscures the architectural

logic.

7oth pictures are faithful to the rules of perspective. 7ut the earlier 'ork is formed in the

service of its subject s absolute order, 'hile the later submits to the disruptive influence of an

ostensibly arbitrary vie'point and moment in time. 2e stand outside the &talian vie', admirers

of the timeless perfection of the imaginary to'nscape8 in de 2itte s picture 'e are participants

in the contingent e!perience of everyday life.

#igure .FH . E"anuel e :itte. Protestant"othic #h$rch, 1 6. ;il on <anel 13 x 1!4 ( !.18 x ! .26 c"#. /i=ks"useu",A"ster a".



+he elaboration of such comparisons leads to a continuous historical analysis of vision in

painting. +he differences bet'een the

fifteenth-century &talian vie' and de 2itte s

hurch are representative of a transformation

in the standard of pictorial authenticity. +heold standard did not disappear, but it became

conservative, marked as a retrospective form.

Also divergent from the norm 'as the van-

guard, formed by pictures 'hose ne' visual

synta! did not enter the mainstream until

much later. Buch a picture is Pieter *ansI

Baenredam s $he Grote 0erk, 4aarlem

5#igure .F 6 NO , 'here the conception of light is less radical than de 2itte s but the

structure is more so. +he frame abruptly truncates the near pillars, 'hich loom enormously in

comparison to their counterparts beyond, hiding crucial features of the interior space. +he

narro' band of pavement is almost po'erless to e!plain the striking ju!taposition of near and

far pillars in the middle of the picture. ?ot until the late nineteenth century 'as such a 'illfully

fragmentary and internally discontinuous vie' the common option of every painter. NO

Ever since Geon 7attista Alberti published On Painting in J F, a perspective picture has

been defined as a plane intersecting the pyramid of vision. NO At the ape! of the pyramid is theeye. +he pyramid s base is the perimeter of the picture. +he picture is the projection upon the

intersecting plane of everything that lies 'ithin the scope of the pyramid, e!tending to infinity.

+he various ingenious objections not'ithstanding, Alberti s definition provides that if perfectly

produced and vie'ed 'ith one eye from the ape! of the imaginary pyramid, a perspective

picture 'ill be like a 'indo' through 'hich its subject is seen.

1iven this definition, any perspective picture is implicitly the product of three

fundamental choices. 5 6 +he artist must choose the arrangement of the subject or 5'hat

amounts to the same thing6 choose the moment at 'hich to represent an e!isting subject8 5 6 hemust choose the point of vie'8 5 6 he must choose the scope of the vie' or, in other 'ords,

establish the edges of the picture. +hese three choices determine the basic composition of the

picture.

#igure .F . Pieter >ans7 ?aenre a". The "rote %er&,'aarle , 1 ! @!3. ;il on <anel, 2! 4 x !2 (56.5 x 81.3c"#. % e %rustees oB t e +ational Galler&, )on on.



All possible functions of these three interdependent choices lie bet'een t'o e!treme,

limiting cases. &n one, the point of vie' and the frame K the visual pyramid K are established

first, creating a measured stage. +he Ideal $ownscape of Piero s circle presents just such a

stage, on 'hich the buildings are arranged for ma!imum visibility, and 'here the position and

siIe of potential figures are easily determined by reference to the pree!isting grid. +he grid isthe key to the reciprocal

relationship of t'o and

three dimensions and

allo's the painter to

compose from the former

into the latter. +hus

;ccello, in his 4unt 5#igure

.F/6 NO , deployed themen, animals, and trees

simultaneously on the surface of the picture and in space, so that there is no gap or obstruction

in either.

&n the opposite conception of the

perspective system, the 'orld is accepted first as

an uninterrupted field of potential pictures. #rom

his chosen point of vie', the artist scans this field

'ith the pyramid of vision, forming his picture bychoosing 'here and 'hen to stop. De 2itte s and

Baenredam s pictures are obviously closer to this

conception. Bo too is Degas s $he 1acing 3ield

5#igure . >6 NO , 'here point of vie' and frame

rob the figures and animals of their physical

integrity, compressing them into an unfamiliar

pattern.

Degas of course composed his picture as carefully as ;ccello, but his intuitive procedure

'as different. ;ccello conceived of the visual pyramid as a static, neutral container, 'ithin 'hich

he organiIed the elements of his picture. &n Degas s 'ork the visual pyramid plays an active,

decisive role. 2e attribute the obstructions to the painter s vie'point and the asymmetry to the

frame, 'hich e!cludes as 'ell as includes. 2here ;ccello s painting seems comprehensive,

Figure 1.56. Paolo ccello. The '$nt in the )orest , c. 1 0. %e"<era on woo<anel, 25 4 x 5 ( .33 x 1 5.1 c"#. As "olean Cuseu", ;xBor .

Figure 1. 0. E gar egas. The *acing )ield+ A ate$roc&eys near a #arriage , c. 1833@80. ;il on canvas, 2

x !1 ¾ ( .0 x 80. 5 c"#. CusDe u )ouvre, Paris.



Degas s seems fragmentary, concentrating in a single visual aspect the vital spirit of the entire

scene.

;ccello 'orked from pieces to a 'hole= he synthesiIed. Degas 'orked from a 'hole to

an aspect= he analyIed.

+hese polar conceptions of perspective have a historical sense. 1radually, over a periodof centuries, ;ccello s procedure of logical construction gave 'ay to Degas s strategy of

selective description. &n theory, there must have been a point at 'hich pictorial e!periment,

diverging from the 3enaissance norm, reached a critical stage, a sufficient density, to form a

ne' norm. :o'ever, since artistic tradition develops along multiple fronts at different rates, and

because the artist s procedure is rarely his subject, this point is difficult to locate. &t is not easy to

name a date 'hen the 'orld e!panded beyond the control of the studio artist, 'ho then

unhinged the visual pyramid, 'ielding it at large in pursuit of his subject.

?evertheless, the invention of photography poses precisely this historical 4uestion. #or the photographer, try as he might, could not follo' ;ccello s procedure. +he camera 'as a tool

of perfect perspective, but the photographer 'as po'erless to compose his picture. :e could

only, in the popular phrase, take it. Even in the studio the photographer began not 'ith the

comfortable plane of his picture but 'ith the intractably three-dimensional stuff of the 'orld.

?oting formal characteristics – obstructions and croppings – that readily arise from this

unavoidable condition of photography, many art historians tacitly attribute to the invention of the

medium the function of a crucial 'atershed. +hey e!plain, for e!ample, some ne' features of

Degas s art in terms of the disruptive influence of photography, ignoring the long tradition from'hich his artistic procedure is derived. &n fact it is not Degas s 'ork that needs e!plaining but

the invention of photography.

Bimply on a practical basis, photography 'ould have been unsuited to the 3enaissance

art of composition. ;ccello might have used the camera to make studies of bits and pieces for

his pictures8 but it is likely that such studies 'ould have displeased him, as they did a much later

artist, Ed'ard :opper= "& once got a little camera to use for details of architecture and so forth

but the photo 'as al'ays so different from the perspective the eye gives, & gave it up.% J

+he 3enaissance system of perspective harnessed vision as a rational basis of picture-making. &nitially, ho'ever, perspective 'as conceived only as a tool for the construction of three

dimensions out of t'o. ?ot until much later 'as this conception replaced – as the common,

intuitive standard – by its opposite= the derivation of a frankly flat picture from a given three-

dimensional 'orld. Photography, 'hich is capable of serving only the latter artistic sense, 'as

born of this fundamental transformation in pictorial strategy. +he invention of photography must



then coincide 'ith or succeed the accumulation of pictorial e!periment that marks the critical

period of transformation from the normative procedure of ;ccello s era to that of Degas s.



1 :elmut and Alison 1ernsheim, $he 4istory of Photography from the amera Obscura to the Beginning of the %odern 5ra5?e' @ork= )c1ra'-:ill, / /6, p. .2 :einrich Bch'arI, "Art and Photography= #orerunners and &nfluences,% %aga6ine of &rt, vol. J , no H 5?ov /J/6. pp. F -FH.3 7eaumont ?e'hall, $he 4istory of Photography from ')7( to the Present 8ay, J th ed. 3ev. 5?e' @ork= +he )useum of)odern Art, / J6, p. .4 Luoted in 7rian 0 Doherty, "Portrait= Ed'ard :opper,% &rt in &merica, vol. F , no 5Dec. / J6, p. HH.

peter galassi before photography

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