In
1839, two new processes for capturing “reality” were announced, thereby
changing forever the way we would see the world. William Henry Fox Talbot
presented to the public in London photogenic drawing, or what he first called
the paper image, while across the channel in Paris, Louis Jacques Mandรฉ
Daguerre, through the French Academy of Sciences, announced the invention of
the daguerreotype.
Talbot’s
system would eventually lead to the more familiar negative to positive process
that can replicate images almost endlessly, and is still in use today, but
Daguerre’s process, which he perfected on his own after the death of his
partner Joseph Nicรฉphore Niรฉpce, was unique and unduplicatable. Although the
Talbot invention would later surpass it, the Daguerreotype was extremely
popular in the beginning.
Despite
the difficulty of the daguerreotype process (exposing a silver-coated copper
plate sensitized in iodine vapor and then developing the latent image by fuming
in mercury vapor), it did provide the possibility of a fairly inexpensive way
to make portraits. The process became so popular that in 1853 three million
daguerreotypes were made, and there were an estimated 10,000 daguerreotype
studios in the United State alone.
One
of these studios was located in Boston. Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah
Johnson Hawes were partners from 1843 to 1863. The enduring product of this
commercial partnership is the subject of the exhibition on view at the George
Eastman House, Young America: The
Daguerreotypes of Southworth and Hawes.
There
are more than 150 daguerreotypes, most of them portraits (including the faces
of a number of well-known 19th-century Americans) but there are also
cityscapes, still-lifes, event documentation, and even photographic copies of
portrait paintings. These portraits are particularly important today for two
reasons. First, the images, which exude a strikingly “modern” minimalist sensibility,
are of extremely good quality. Second, these are the faces of an America that
is not yet even a century old.
Appropriately,
the first image you see as you enter the gallery is that of a young woman
looking at the painted portrait of George Washington, who stares back at us.
This triangulated viewing experience allows for the connection of three moments
in history: The photograph of the girl is “proof” that, at some real point in
time, she stood in front of a painting of George Washington, who would have had
to be in front of the artist who painted him, and now both the painting and the
girl are in front of the camera operated by Southworth and Hawes.
The
photograph implies a seamlessness of both vision and history but history exists
in the gap between what we see and what is not there. Who was this young woman?
While the beautiful surfaces and interesting faces give the viewer all that is
there in front of the camera, these pictures withhold much more than they show.
We
can imagine the stories behind the sitters and the lives they led. In that way,
these images form a window into life in Victorian America. Sure, it’s a window
with many panes, some of which we can see through and some of which we can’t.
In the course of their 20 years together, Southworth and Hawes took artistic
portraiture to a new level. They believed their customers should be seen as
they wanted to be seen rather than as
they really were.
Consider,
for example, a pair of photographs of an unidentified woman. Southworth’s
sister Nancy married Hawes and became a part of the business, assisting sitters
and hand-coloring exposed plates. Included in their advertisements were the
words, “woman on site.”
In
this particular pair of images, the version on the right is of a weary-looking
middle-aged woman wearing a plaid silk waist. We guess at her age based on the
slightly sagging face with slightly pronounced smile lines and the hint of
darkness under her eyes. But the version on the left has not only been
hand-colored but the colorist has also revived the face. The facial lines have
been smoothed out, the cheeks tinted a rosy hue, and a more youthful, pretty
appearance has been left in place.
The
bridal portraits, virtually unknown in the work of other daguerreotypists, are
yet another example of how Southworth and Hawes were sensitive to the needs and
social aspirations of their elite and famous clientele, even displaying what
some critics have termed “artistic taste” (although how and where Southworth
and Hawes acquired this taste is not clear).
In
an image dated circa 1850, a young woman with gloved hands stands facing the
camera in an elegant, multi-tiered wedding gown. We know from the accompanying
label that the portrait was for display in the Grand Parlor and Gallery
Stereoscope, a major feature of Southworth and Hawes’ exhibition room. As one
of the curators remarked, “From a mile away you can tell this is a special
photograph.”
Looking
at daguerreotypes has never been so easy. The museum pulled out all the stops
and figured out how to light each and every one so that you can see them
easily. There is no need for head bobbing or weaving. No need to try to jockey
your body around so as to remove a distracting reflection.
Ironically,
this accomplishment makes you forget that what we’re really looking at are objects, beautiful and mesmerizing, but
remote and silent. Though easy to look at, these photographs cannot literally
speak to us. We have to fill in the stories ourselves.
You should go if you want to see a daguerreotype like
you’ll never see again.
Young
America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes, through January 8 | George Eastman
House, 900 East Avenue | 271-3361, www.eastmanhouse.org | Hours: Tuesday to
Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday until 8 p.m., Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. | $8, $6
seniors, $5 students, $3 children
This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2005.
