Photography and its Critics: A Cultural History, 1839–1900 (Perspectives on Photography)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 5/13/1997
EAN 9780521550437, ISBN10: 0521550432
Hardcover, 242 pages, 25.4 x 17.8 x 1.4 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
First published in 1997, Photography and its Critics offers an overview of nineteenth-century American and European writing about photography from such disparate fields as art theory, social reform, and physiology. The earliest criticism of the invention was informed by an ample legacy of notions about objectivity, appearances, and copying. Received ideas about neutral vision, intuitive genius, and progress in art also shaped nineteenth-century understanding of photography. In this study, Mary Warner Marien argues that photography was an important social and cultural symbol for modernity and change in several fields, such as art and social reform. Moreover, she demonstrates how photography quickly emerged as a pliant symbol for modernity and change, one that could as easily oppose progress as promote democracy.
1. The origins of photographic discourse
2. Photography and the modern in nineteenth-century thought
3. Art, photography and society
4. Forced to be free
photography, literacy, and mass culture
5. The lure of modernity
Epilogue
ghosts
photography and the modern
Bibliographic survey.