Photographic Theory

Andrew E. Hershberger is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History and Chair of Art History at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He has published numerous journal articles in History of Photography, Art Journal, Early Popular Visual Culture, Analecta Husserliana, Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, Academe, and Arts of Asia.

• Introduction 11 Before Photography to Invention: c. 380 B.C.E.–1839 9Camera/Vision 111.1 Excerpts from the Allegory of the Cave. In The Republic 12Plato, c. 380 B.C.E.1.2 The Function of the Eye, As Explained by the Camera Obscura 17Leonardo da Vinci, c. 15201.3 Description of the Camera Lucida 19William H. Wollaston, 1807Art/History 231.4 Excerpts on Linear Perspective. In On Painting 24Leon Battista Alberti, 15401.5 Account of the late Mr. [Robert] Barker 29Anonymous, 18061.6 Description of the Process of Painting and Effects of Light Invented by Daguerre, and Applied by Him to the Pictures of the Diorama 31Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, 18392 Invention to Pictorialism: 1839–c. 1880 35What is Photography? 372.1 Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing 38William Henry Fox Talbot, 1839 [March]2.2 The Pencil of Nature. A New Discovery 44Nathaniel Parker Willis and Timothy O. Porter, eds., 1839 [April]2.3 Report [on the Daguerreotype to the Chamber of Deputies] 48François Arago, 1839 [July]Art/History 552.4 Upon Photography in an Artistic View, and in Its Relations to the Arts 56Sir William J. Newton, 18532.5 La Photographie 59Antoine Joseph Wiertz, 18552.6 Photography 61Eastlake, Lady (Elizabeth) 1857Camera/Vision 672.7 The Stereoscope and the Stereograph 68Oliver Wendell Holmes, 18592.8 Combination Printing. In Pictorial Effect in Photography 72Henry Peach Robinson, 18692.9 Annals of My Glass House 76Julia Margaret Cameron, 18743 Pictorialism to/and/vs. Modernism: c. 1880–c. 1920 81Camera/Vision 833.1 Focussing. In Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art 84Peter Henry Emerson, 18903.2 The Death of Naturalistic Photography 88Peter Henry Emerson, 18903.3 The Hand Camera — Its Present Importance 91Alfred Stieglitz, 1896Interdisciplinary Approaches 953.4 Photo-Chemical Investigations and a New Method of Determination of the Sensitiveness of Photographic Plates 96Ferdinand Hurter and Vero C. Driffield, 18903.5 Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs 100Charles Sanders Peirce, c. 19003.6 Intuition and Art. In Æsthetic: As Science of Expression and General Linguistic 105Benedetto Croce, 19023.7 The Cinematographical Mechanism of Thought and the Mechanistic Illusion…. In Creative Evolution 108Henri Bergson, 1907What Should Photographs Look Like? 1133.8 On the Straight Print 114Robert Demachy, 19073.9 What is a “Straight Print”? 118Frederick H. Evans, 19073.10 Photography and Artistic-Photography 121Marius de Zayas, 19134 Modernism to Postmodernism: c. 1920–c. 1960 123Camera/Vision 1254.1 Photography and the New God 126Paul Strand, 19224.2 Light: A Medium of Plastic Expression 130László Moholy-Nagy, 19234.3 Seeing Photographically 132Edward Weston, 19434.4 The Camera’s Glass Eye 136Clement Greenberg, 1946What Should Photographs Look Like? 1394.5 Aims 140Albert Renger-Patzsch, 19274.6 A Personal Credo 142Ansel Adams, 19434.7 Our Illustrations 147Frank R. Fraprie, 19434.8 Photography at the Crossroads 150Berenice Abbott, 1951Art/History 1554.9 Excerpts from Perspective as Symbolic Form 156Erwin Panofsky, 19274.10 The Age of the World Picture 161Martin Heidegger, 1938/524.11 Excerpts from Museum Without Walls 164André Malraux, 1947Interdisciplinary Approaches 1694.12 Photography and Typography 170Jan Tschichold, 19284.13 The Making of a Film. In Film as Art 174Rudolph Arnheim, 19324.14 The Ontology of the Photographic Image. In What Is Cinema? 176André Bazin, 1945What is Photography? 1814.15 Mechanism and Expression, the Essence and Value of Photography 182Franz Roh, 19294.16 Introduction to The Decisive Moment 188Henri Cartier-Bresson, 19524.17 Photography 192Siegfried Kracauer, 19605 Modernism and Postmodernism to Digital Imaging: c. 1960–c. 1990 199Art/History 2015.1 Equivalence: The Perennial Trend 202Minor White, 19635.2 Perspective. In Languages of Art 207Nelson Goodman, 19685.3 Can There Ever Again Be a History of Photography? 211Peter C. Bunnell, 19755.4 Introduction to Before Photography: Painting and the Invention of Photography 214Peter Galassi, 19815.5 New Metaphorics: Spirit and Symbol in Contemporary Landscape Photography 219Gretchen Garner, 1988Camera/Vision 2255.6 Introduction to The Photographer’s Eye 226John Szarkowski, 19665.7 Post-Visualization 232Jerry Uelsmann, 19675.8 Introduction to New Topographics 235William Jenkins, 1975Interdisciplinary Approaches 2395.9 Excerpts from The World Viewed 240Stanley Cavell, 19715.10 Notes on the Index: Seventies Art in America 246Rosalind Krauss, 19775.11 Photography and Fetish 251Christian Metz, 19855.12 Film, Photography, and Fetish: The Analyses of Christian Metz 256Ben Singer, 1988What is Photography? 2635.13 On the Nature of Photography 264Rudolf Arnheim, 19745.14 Photography, Vision, and Representation 269Joel Snyder and Neil Walsh Allen, 19755.15 The Directorial Mode: Notes Toward a Definition 276A. D. Coleman, 19765.16 Selections from Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism 284Kendall L.Walton, 19845.17 The Photograph as Post-Industrial Object: An Essay on the Ontological Standing of Photographs 290Vilém Flusser, 1986Identity/Politics 2955.18 The Traffic in Photographs 296Allan Sekula, 19815.19 Of Mother Nature and Marlboro Men: An Inquiry into the Cultural Meanings of Landscape Photography 302Deborah Bright, 19855.20 Excerpts from Right of Inspection 310Jacques Derrida, 19855.21 Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction 315Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, 19876 Postmodernism and Digital Imaging (Return to Pictorialism?): c. 1990–c. 2010 319What is Digital Photography? 3216.1 The Transcendental Machine? A Comparison of Digital Photography and Nineteenth-Century Modes of Photographic Representation 322Diana Emery Hulick, 19906.2 Photojournalism in the Age of Computers 329Fred Ritchin, 19906.3 Phantasm: Digital Imaging and the Death of Photography. In Metamorphoses 334Geoffrey Batchen, 19946.4 Escaping Reality: Digital Imagery and the Resources of Photography 338Barbara E. Savedoff, 19976.5 Fixing the Art of Digital Photography: Electronic Shadows 344Ellen Handy, 19986.6 Digital Ontologies: The Ideality of Form in/and Code Storage — or — Can Graphesis Challenge Mathesis? 350Johanna Drucker, 2001Identity/Politics 3556.7 Do Not Doubt the Dangerousness of the 12-Inch-Tall Politician 356David Wojnarowicz, 19916.8 The Politics of Focus: Feminism and Photography Theory 359Lindsay Smith, 19926.9 Re-Picturing Photography: A Language in the Making 365Aphrodite Désirée Navab, 20016.10 A Painful Labour: Responsibility and Photography 370Sharon Sliwinski, 2004Camera/Vision 3776.11 Clement Greenberg and Walker Evans: Transparency and Transcendence 378Mike Weaver, 19916.12 The Shadows on the Wall. In The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era 382William J. Mitchell, 19926.13 Of Fish, Birds, Cats, Mice, Spiders, Flies, Pigs, and Chimpanzees: How Chance Casts the Historic Action Photograph into Doubt 384Robin Kelsey, 2009Art/History 3896.14 The Invisible Dragon: On Beauty I 390Dave Hickey, 19916.15 The Idiom in Photography as the Truth in Painting 394Rosemary Hawker, 20026.16 “Impressed by Nature’s Hand”: Photography and Authorship 399Douglas R. Nickel, 2009Photography and Memory 4076.17 Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory 408Marianne Hirsch, 20016.18 Visualizing Memory: Photographs and the Art of Biography 412Deborah Willis, 20036.19 Remembering September 11: Photography as Cultural Diplomacy 415Liam Kennedy, 20036.20 Through a Glass, Darkly: Photography and Cultural Memory 421Alan Trachtenberg, 2008Interdisciplinary Approaches 4256.21 Curiosity and Conjecture: Mathematics, Photography, and the Imagination 426David Travis, 20036.22 Image as Trace: Speculations about an Undead Paradigm 429Peter Geimer, 20076.23 The Photographic Argument of Philosophy 436Alexander Sekatskiy, 2010Works Cited and Further Reading 440Credits, Sources, and Acknowledgments 449Acknowledgments 454Index 456

"There can be no question that those of us who teach the history of photography – and our students – have been put most deeply in Hershberger’s debt."  (History of Photography Online, 1 June 2015)"This chronologically (and, to a lesser extent, thematically) organized selection of key contributions to photographic theory display both the highly exciting diversity of theoretical questions raised by the emergence, development, triumph, and eventual metamorphosis of photography and the amazing possibility to organize the sometimes savage heterogenity of this material along unobtrusive and simple art-historical lines." - Leonardo Online (1 February 2014)