THE SCENIC DAGUERREOTYPE: ROMANTICISM AND EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY - Rare Fine Association Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed And Inscribed by John Wood - SIGNED ON THE PAGE ITSELF

Wood, John (Author) & Stilgoe, John R. (Contributor)

ISBN 10: 0877455112 / ISBN 13: 9780877455110

Published by Iowa City, IA: University Of Iowa Press, 1995, 1995

1st Printing. Signed. 222 pages. Published in 1995. Landmark monograph on subject. One of the most important photography books ever published in our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only and as part of the now-classic series on the early history of photography by the Iowa University Press. The First Edition is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by University of Iowa Press: Oversize-volume format. Maroon linen cloth boards with metallic-silver titles embossed on spine, as issued. Text by John Wood. Foreword by John R. Stilgoe. Photographs by various contributors. Printed on archival, acid-free stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents John Wood's "The Scenic Daguerreotype". The best book on its subject, whose devotee and guiding light is the poet, literary critic, and photography scholar John Wood. "Imagine a gold and mercury image on a layer of silver bonded to copper, an all-metal photographic process that poisoned some its practitioners. Imagine an era long before a surfeit of images began to dull the viewer, when a visual reality, not a virtual one, captivated the imagination. The daguerreotype process is not only one of the great artistic vehicles for rendering the human face, but an equally potent and elegant means of rendering a scenic image. The author has assembled the largest collection of daguerreotypes ever seen in book form, including Jean-Louis-Baptiste Gros' masterful studies of the Acropolis and the Seine and Joseph Wilhelm Pero's striking images of Lubeck, Germany" (Publisher's blurb). An absolute "must-have" title for John Wood and photography book collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed and inscribed in black ink-pen by the author: "For Martha, with affection, John Wood". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. The recipient, Martha Schneider, who is named, is one of the most important figures in contemporary art and photography. This title is a contemporary photography classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed and inscribed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. 100 plates. Some of the finest photographs we will ever see, scrutinized with love, passion, and measure by one of the finest photography historian/scholars of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOHN WOOD TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0877455112. Seller Inventory # 19111

Synopsis:

Too often, photographic historians have given credit to the calotype for establishing our sense and standard of the photographic, when in reality it was the daguerreotype that first taught us how to see photographically, taking us beyond portraiture to a standard for scenic images that is still with us today.
Here is the first study of scenic daguerreotypes from around the world and the largest assemblage of them ever to be presented in book form. Contending that L. J. M. Daguerre was at the forefront of the romantic revolution, Wood discusses Daguerre's work in the context of John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, and Caspar David Friedrich. He also draws parallels between early landscape photography, the poetry of William Wordsworth, and William Gilpin's notions of the picturesque, which influenced both travel and the way nineteenth-century men and women began to view the landscape around them.
Wood's selection of more than a hundred images presents the best surviving examples of the scenic daguerreotype. They include views of the Acropolis, Egypt, and China, of mountains and Alpine scenery, of Pompeii, Venice, and the temples of Rome, of the California Gold Rush and other American scenes, plus daguerreotypes from Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Martinique, and Brazil.

About the Author: John Wood holds a dual appointment at McNeese State University as professor of English and professor of photographic history.

Bibliographic Details

Title: THE SCENIC DAGUERREOTYPE: ROMANTICISM AND ...
Publisher: Iowa City, IA: University Of Iowa Press, 1995
Publication Date: 1995
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
Signed: Signed by Author
Edition: 1st Edition.