Victor Regnault and the Advance of Photography: The Art of Avoiding Errors

Dahlberg, Laurie

ISBN 10: 0691118795 / ISBN 13: 9780691118796

Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2005

About this Item

208 pp., 100 photographs 80 duotone. Dustjacket is protected with a mylar cover.

Seller Inventory # 006336

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Victor Regnault and the Advance of Photography: The Art of Avoiding Errors
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691118795
• ISBN 13: 9780691118796
• Binding: Cloth
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Fine Condition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine Condition
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Art: Photography

About this title

Synopsis

This lavishly illustrated book establishes the towering influence of the scientist Victor Regnault (1810-1878) in the earliest decades of photography, a period of experimentation ripe with artistic, commercial, and scientific possibility. Regnault has a double significance to the early history of photography, as the first leader of the Société Française de Photographie (S.F.P.) and as the maker of more than two hundred calotype (paper negative) portraits and landscapes. His photographic and scientific careers intersected a third field with his appointment in 1852 as director of the Sèvres porcelain works.


Readers are treated to Regnault's own beguiling pastoral, garden, and forest scenes; striking portraits of the scientists and artists in his circle of friends; quirky images of acoustic experiments; and an insider's view of the Sèvres porcelain works. Regnault's richly varied photographs also encompass perhaps the most extensive group of family portraits in early photography, and his romanticized landscapes reflect a moment when the rural outskirts of Paris were being aggressively suburbanized and industrialized.


Occupying a unique and powerful position in the overlapping spheres of photography, science, industry, and art, Regnault was elected president of the newly formed S.F.P. in 1855. By examining his intertwined activities against the backdrop of French photography's nascent pursuit of institutional legitimacy, this book illuminates an important and overlooked body of images and the irregular cultural terrain of early photography.

About the Author

Laurie Dahlberg is Associate Professor of Art History and Photography, and Chair of the Program in Art History, at Bard College. She has contributed essays to numerous books and exhibition catalogues.