BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY Photography was not a bastard left by science on the doorstep of art, but a legitimate child of the Western pictorial tradition. Peter Galassi

LINEAR PERSPECTIVE “The ultimate origins of photography – both technical and aesthetic – lie in the fifteenth-century invention of linear perspective.”

Pablo Picasso, Guitar with Sheet Music and Wine Glass, papier collé with drawing,1912 Modern art famously breaks the “laws” of optical perspective that held in Western art for 5 centuries: response to photography?

Non-Western and Pre-Renaissance European Perspectival Systems Perspective as a Symbolic Form – Irwin Panofsky Hesire, 2723 BCE. In ancient Egyptian perspective the primary value was that the entire body of the (here a servant) who would attend the deceased I n the afterlife is needed. “Half” eyes or foreshortened limbs (as representedin optical perspective) would not be functional in the afterlife.

Ancient Egyptian tomb painting: A painting at Abu Simbel shows Ramses II beating war captives. Ramses’ exaggerated size has symbolic meaning signifying his god-like power and heroic feats.

Tomb painting of the botanical garden of Nebamun, with artificial fish pond, New Kingdom, Egypt, 1400 BCE Conceptual rather than optical perspective displays each object with equal visibility and detail.

Ma Yuan, Landscape in Moonlight, ca. 1200 CE Chinese hanging scroll, ink, and color on silk.

Anonymous, The Battles of Hogen and Heiji, Edo period, screen, 17th century Japan

Anonymous, The Persian Prince Humay meets the Chinese Princess Humayun in her garden, c.1430-40, tempera on parchment.

Anonymous, Christ as Ruler of the Universe, the Virgin, and Child, and Saints, ca. 1190, mosaic, Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily.

Anonymous, Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne, Italy, ca Anonymous, Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne, Italy, ca. 1280, tempera on wood

Giotto di Bondone, Frescoes, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy,1305-06

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Good Government, ca. 1340, fresco Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Allegory of Good Government, ca. 1340, fresco. Palazzo Publico, Siena.

Analysis of perspective of Lorenzetti’s Birth of the Virgin. Pietro Lorenzetti, Birth of the Virgin,1342, tempera on wood panel.

Masaccio, Trinity (and right, scheme of perspective) 1425-28, fresco, Santa Maria Novella, Florence: considered first use of scientific perspective Masters of Illusion

Leon Battista Alberti published On Painting in 1435, dedicated to Brunelleschi, describing laws of perspective Drawing by Brunelleschi, The central nave of St. Lorenzo, Florence, Italy Masters of Illusion

PERSPECTIVE MACHINES

PERSPECTIVE MACHINES Early Renaissance surveying machines – described by Leonardo, Piero della Francesca Alberti – “Circumscription” device Alberti's own perspective device as recorded in De Pictura introduces us to the most simple and ubiquitous of the procedures, namely the direct transcription of the linear disposition of objects as they appear to the eye on the intersecting plane. He describes 'a veil loosely woven of fine thread, dyed whatever color you please, divided up by thicker threads into as many parallel square areas as you like, and stretched on a frame'. This device, 'whose usage I was the first to discover . .is called the intersection among my friends'. Viewing the objects through this translucent network from a fixed station point, the artist would be able to transcribe the arrangement of forms onto a drawing surface which has been divided into similar squares. This technique is seen by Alberti as specifically applicable to 'circumscription', one of the three branches of painting (with 'composition' and 'reception of light and shade?. Leonardo Da Vinci, Draughtsman Using a Transparent Plane to Draw an Armillary Sphere, 1510

Illustration of Leonardo’s perspective grid

A pane of glass slips into the frame B.C. E. An adjustable sight frame with peep hole at top. The artist traces what he sees on the pane of glass in ink and then transfers the resulting drawing on to a wet sheet of paper. Illustration from the book The Practice of Perspective, by Jean Dubreuil, 1642, showing an artist using a perspective glass

Albrecht Durer, Artist using a glass to take a portrait, 1525, woodcut.

However, even at this very earliest point in the mechanical imitation of nature, there are clear signs of the repeated criticism which such devices were to provoke, namely that they are 'mindiess'-intellectually and aesthetically. Alberti, for his part, 'will not listen to those who say it is no good for a painter to get into the habit of using these things, because, although they offer him the greatest help in painting, they render the artist unable to do anything without them'. In achieving the goal of an exact representation of the components of an object and of the corresponding patterns of light and shade, the veil will permit the artist to capture appearance in an unrivalled manner. The resulting forms, 'circumscribed according to nature, will provide the building blocks for the artist's 'composition'. The impression is that Alberti did not actually expect the veil to be used directly in the final work, which is not surprising when we remember that Bistord painting remained his supreme goal for the inventive artist. Alberti's defensive position over the use of the veil echoes and re-echoes throughout the history of such devices, and is especially characteristic of the nineteenth-century literature defending photography from the charge of mechanical artlessness. Our introductory quotation has shown Leonardo adopting the critical stance which had already faced Alberti. Albrecht Durer, The painter studying the laws of foreshortening, 1525, woodcut. Draughtsmen plotting points for the drawing of a lute in foreshortening.

THE CAMERA OBSCURA

CAMERA OBSCURA DEVELOPMENTS Camera = Latin for “room”. Obscura = Latin for “dark” 5th C. B.C. China - References to pinholes in screens revealing an understanding of image formation translated as “collecting place”, “locked treasure room.”

Light travels in a straight line and when some of the rays reflected from a bright subject pass through a small hole in thin material they do not scatter but cross and reform as an upside down image on a flat surface held parallel to the hole.

Camera obscura room, 1752

Camera obscura room, 1754.

Alexandre Saverien, Tent, Room, and Book Camera Obscuras, 1753, engraving.

Portable Camera Obscuras, 1685

A reflex camera obscura.

Camera obscura tent

Peter Gelassi, Before Photography Photography relies on two scientific principles : 1) A principle of optics on which the Camera Obscura is based 2) Principle of chemistry, that certain combinations of elements, especially silver halides, turn dark when exposed to light (rather than heat or exposure to air) was demonstrated in 1717 by Johann Heinrich Schulze, professor of anatomy at the University of Altdorf

Piero della Francesca. An Ideal Townscape, c. 1470 Piero della Francesca. An Ideal Townscape, c. 1470. Panel, 23 ½” x 78 ¾” (59.69 x 200.01 cm). Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, Italy. Scientific single-point perspective How might this be a symbolic form?

Emanuel de Witte. Protestant Church, 1669. Oil on panel 17” x 13 ½” (43.18 x 34.29 cm). Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Pieter Saenredam. The Grote Kerk, Haarlem, 1636-37 Pieter Saenredam. The Grote Kerk, Haarlem, 1636-37. Oil on panel, 23 ½” x 32 ¼” (59.5 x 81.7 cm). The Trustees of the National Gallery, London.

Paolo Uccello. The Hunt in the Forest, c. 1460 Paolo Uccello. The Hunt in the Forest, c. 1460. Tempera on wood panel, 25 ½” x 65” (64.77 x 165.1 cm). Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Edgar Degas. The Racing Field: Amateur Jockeys near a Carriage, c Edgar Degas. The Racing Field: Amateur Jockeys near a Carriage, c. 1877-80. Oil on canvas, 26” x 31 ¾” (66.04 x 80.65 cm). Musée du Louvre, Paris

Photographic Vision? How much did photography influence 19th century painting? “A popular presumption today would have it that photographs, and especially fast exposures after c. 1860, revealed a great deal that was new and unique: a revolutionary new world of odd perspectives and viewpoints, peculiar compositional croppings, and candid instantaneity.” Kirk Varnadoe, “The Artifice of Candor” Edgar Degas, The Rehersal, 1879 de Witte, Protestant Church, 1669

Keep in mind: Thursday September 22, class meets at the California State Library 900 N St. entrance at 7 pm. Gary Kurutz, Director of Special Collections, will present and discuss vintage photographs from the collection in the California History Room, Room 200 Bring notebook and pen

Gary Kurutz, Director of Special Collections California State Library P.O. Box 942837 Sacramento, CA 94237-0001 We see examples of 19th century photography such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, albumen prints by Eadweard Muybridge and Carleton Watkins, views of the San Francisco earthquake, of the gold rush, and many other works that the students otherwise would not be able to see anywhere. Gary does this entirely for free. I estimate that the time required for this service – retrieving the pictures from the vaults, setting up the displays for the class, lecturing, and putting everything away – to be a full day’s work. Please send a note of thanks to Gary for this service. His generosity and enthusiasm for the subject make this event the highlight of the semester for us.