707
day events, but also less common scenes and objects.
Some of them invented documentary commissions for
themselves. The studios of Woodbury & Page, Samuel
Bourne, William Henry Louis Skeen and Charles T.
Scowen, produced photographs of the highest quality,
among them, over and under one another in a more or
less haphazard manner.
Stieglitz had been introduced to the technique of
photography in Europe, during a period of radical
change within the world of the fi ne arts. Seeing his
photographic work, painters proclaimed that it would
have been superb if only it had been executed with
a brush. The borderline between photography and
painting was becoming blurred, a development that
was closely linked to what resulted in a revolution in
the general approach to painting. Since the advent of
Impressionism, the representation—what was depicted
in the painting—was becoming less and less important.
Abandoning the representation, artists were increasingly
using texture and surface structure to create to create
a mood or an impression. These views understandably
struck a sensitive chord with photographers.
At fi rst nude photography was even banned from
some photographic society exhibitions, but gradually
a number of conventions evolved—some adapted from
painting—which made it respectable in the salons of
pictorialism. These involved a strange desexualisation
of the aesthetic female nude by strategic placement of
props, ‘tasteful’ posing, soft focus and retouching of all
body hair. Such conventions continued in much amateur
photography and ‘soft pornography’ into the second half
of the twentieth century.
Another widely available source of pictures of naked
and near naked men and women were various photo-
graphs and articles of anthropological nature, illustrated
by people in traditional costumes from around the world.
Perhaps the main scientifi c fi nding that could be deduced
from these was the fascination of many photographers
(and magazine readers) with cultures where young and
nubile women lived bare-breasted.
The male nude was both less common as a subject and
also less problematic, both largely as it was not regarded
as a sexual object by the dominant male heterosexual
culture. So long as the male organ was not aroused it
was acceptable, and some photographers such as Baron
von Gloeden, photographing young boys in a Sicilian
village, took great advantage of this freedom. Of course
being titled and extremely wealthy also helped.
Outside of the light world of artistic photography
other practices fl ourished—the saucy postcard, so-called
artists studies and other soft and hard-core pornography.
Much of this has been repackaged as art books in recent
years, as well as being available through postcard deal-
ers and web sites.
Among the interesting collections from this period
are the photographs taken in New Orleans by E. J. Bel-
locq. These pictures showing girls from the Storyville
brothels in their rooms, relaxing in front of the camera,
are an intriguing and valuable document of the era.
During the 1890s photography has advanced by leaps
and bounds. The fi rst fi lm was developed late in the 19th
century, made of a dried gelatin. This fi lm was very
fragile and did not gain widespread popularity. Then in
1889 a nitrate based, plastic roll fi lm was developed. Due
to a tendency to curl, this fi lm also lacked popularity,
but in 1903 a non-curling variety was developed, and
began to be widely used, and in 1913 the fi lm became
available in sheet form and began to compete with the
glass plate negative, which it eventually supplanted.
The photographic papers in use in this century tend to
be sturdier than those of earlier years, so the practice of
pasting them to cardboard mounts was mostly dropped.
Professional photographers still used cardboard back-
ings, sometimes folding cards that covered the front of
the photo as well and could serve as a stand, but the
picture was just slipped into slots in the mount, or tacked
lightly in one spot to hold it in place.
Having passed through the stages of invention and
the fi rst attempts at commercialization, by the end of
the 1900s, photography was ready to cross the threshold
separating a technological medium, still uncertain of its
future, from a commercial and artistic activity recog-
nized and solidly integrated into society from museum,
universities and art-schools.
Johan SwinnenSee also: Talbot, William Henry Fox; Hill, David
Octavius, and Adamson, Robert; Bourne, Samuel;
Riis, Jacob August; Royal Society, London; Käsebier,
Gertrude; Stieglitz, Alfred; Emerson, Peter Henry;
Robinson, Henry Peach; Hurter, Ferdinand, and
Driffi eld, Vero Charles; Abney, Willam de Wiveleslie;
Davison, George; Curtis, Edward Sheriff; Lumière,
August and Louis; Woodburytype, Woodburygravure;
Skeen, W.L.H.; Scowen, Charles; Sutcliffe, Frank
Meadow; Evans, Frederick H.; White, Clarence
Hudson; von Gloeden, Baron Wilhelm; Brotherhood
of the Linked Ring; Naturalistic Photography.Further Reading
Aubenas, Sylvie, L’art du nu au XIXième siècle: le photogrpahe
et son modèle, Hazan, Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
1997.
Auer, Michel & Michèle, Encyclopédie internationale des pho-
tographes des débuts à nos jours, CD-Rom, Neuchâtel, Éd.
Ides et Calendes, diffusion Hazan, 1997.
Beaton, Cecil, and Buckland, Gay, The Magic Image: The ge-
nius of Photography from 1839 to the Present Day. London:
Pavilion Books, 1989.
Boom, Mattie (ed.), A New Art. Photography in the 19th Century,
Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1996.HISTORY: 8. 1890s