695
however, he was working in less controversial areas as
a London portrait photographer and supplementing his
income by supplying photographic studies of children
and adults to artists. His last major work consisted of
illustrations for Charles Darwin’s book, On the expres-
sions of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published
in 1872. Henry Peach Robinson was perhaps the most
infl uential art photographer of the day and was to have
a longer career. Robinson was a competent painter who
had turned to portrait photography in the 1850s. Fol-
lowing Rejlander’s path, his 1858 combination print,
Fading Away, had been widely admired, both in Britain
and abroad. Other genre combination prints, often in
a Victorian sentimental style, soon followed. His most
admired print of the 1870s was probably When the Day’s
Work is Done (1877). Robinson was a prolifi c author
and despite periods of ill health, contributed numerous
articles to journals throughout his career. His fi rst book
published in1869, Pictorial Effect in Photography, was
based on the principles of the art education programme
of the Royal Academy and became a seminal text for
the rest of the century. Despite his infl uence and the
esteem in which he was held, Robinson had his critics
who accused his combination printing technique of
misrepresenting the truth. Robinson was a complex
fi gure. As a photographer, he specialised in producing
representations of nature that never existed in reality.
Yet when contributing to one of the burning debates of
the period, he wrote in the Photographic News (Jan.
26, 1872, 41). “The chief charge against retouching
is, that it destroys the truth of nature as represented in
photography.” Joseph Gale’s images are less well known
today but he was an admired and respected English
photographer who fi rst came to notice in 1874. His
gentle rural landscapes and views with carefully posed
models were perfectly in tune with English fashion of
the period.
Away from the studios, landscape and architectural
photography remained widely practised activities by
specialists. Francis Bedford had taken up photography
in the 1850s and photographed in the Holy Land in
the 1860s. During the 1860s and 1870s he travelled
widely in Britain taking wet plate-views on his large
format cameras. Thousands of his views were sold in
single print and stereoscopic form. He also found time
to contribute regularly to the photographic journals.
Similarly, the commercial concerns of the photogra-
phers James Valentine and George Washington Wilson
were fi rmly established. Based in Scotland, enormous
numbers of their views were marketed throughout
Britain and abroad. Henry Taunt’s wet-plate views of
Oxford and the Thames taken in the late 1860s and early
1870s were greatly admired. Taunt included many to
illustrate his book published in 1872, A New Map of
the River Thames. The Scottish photographer, John
Thomson, published much of his work in photographi-
cally illustrated books, which were eagerly purchased
by the educated middle class in England. His views of
China taken between 1870 and 1872 were published in
1873–4. The prints appeared in the form of carbon prints
and collotypes with a written text by Thomson. Perhaps
Thompson’s most infl uential work was Street Life in
London, prepared in association with Adolphe Smith
and published in twelve monthly parts in 1877–78.
The 36 Woodburytype images of the working class in
London were derived from carefully posed negatives
but are a landmark in social documentary photography.
French architectural photographers also produced strik-
ing social documents. Charles Marville’s views of the
rebuilding of Paris between 1865 and 1878 are amongst
the fi nest examples of architectural photography using
the wet plate process. Also notable was the partnership
of Delmaet and Durandelle that recorded the building
works of the Paris Opera and the Church of Sacre-Cour
during the 1870s. Many photographs of the devastation
caused by the Franco-Prussian War were taken during
the confl ict but few have achieved the iconic status
of Fenton’s Crimean War views or the images of the
American Civil War. The photographs taken during the
subsequent insurrection in Paris have received more
exposure although many of the photographers are un-
known. Among those identifi ed are Alphonse Liebert
who published one hundred views of the destruction of
Paris and events of the Commune in 1871 and the French
commercial photographer Hippolyte Collard who pho-
tographed views of the street barricades. Documentary
photography of a completely different order took place
in America. The four US Geological and Geographical
surveys of the Western Territories of 1867-1879 were
conceived purely as scientifi c and documentary exer-
cises but the powerful images of the rugged landscapes
that were produced profoundly infl uenced the American
public. The Photographers included Eadweard Muy-
bridge, William Henry Jackson, Timothy O’Sullivan
and Carlton E. Watkins. Although some rough prints
were made in the fi eld, regular shipments of wet-plate
negatives were sent to Washington for printing. By
the mid 1870s clever marketing had allowed an eager
public to purchase enormous numbers of views sold in
the form of prints and stereographs, images that have
shaped the view of the American West to the present
day. Jackson later had a long career marketing views of
the west but his photographs of the 1870s, taken in as-
sociation with a landscape artist, Thomas Moran, can be
ranked alongside the most powerful images of American
photography. The work of the survey photographers
inspired the beginning of a professional ‘landscape
school’ of American photographers.
The applications of photography to unrelated fi elds
of observation, record and investigation continued toHISTORY: 6. 1870s