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The
history and development of the photographically illustrated
book parallel the explosion in communications technology in
the Victorian era. In a period of unprecedented advances in
science, travel, tourism and industry, photography provided
an exciting, new and accurate alternative to conventional
methods of illustration such as etching and engraving. The
nineteenth century also witnessed a growth in the publication
of books containing original photographs of paintings, sculpture,
and engravings of art works. Art was thus democratised by
the process of photographic reproduction. The application
of photography as a form of narrative also provided a new
means of illustrating fiction and non-fiction.
The
Pencil of Nature (1844-6) by William Henry Fox Talbot
was the first published photographically illustrated book.
Talbot's 'calotype' invention was a paper process, based on
the effect of sunlight upon a solution of sodium chloride
(table salt) and silver nitrate soaked into a sheet of paper
which became light sensitive. Chemical development produced
a negative image on the paper, which was rendered permanent
by a 'fixing solution' invented by Sir John Herschel. The
'negative' was then placed over another sheet of paper which
had been chemically treated and 'exposed' to sunlight. This
action produced a positive image - a direct, but reversed
image of the negative.
The significance
and value of Talbot's invention was the ability of his process
to produce multiple copies from one negative. Recognised by
the publishing industry as the 'most marvellous of all the
inventions of modern times' (The Search for a Publisher,
1865), the use of photographs to illustrate books began tentatively
in the mid-nineteenth century. The cost of the production
of hand-made photographs, and the impermanence of the images,
forced publishers to evaluate carefully the commercial risk
of this new medium. As Robert Hunt wrote in his Photography:
a treatise in chemical changes, 'the cost of reproduction
was still too high for man to press the sun into the service
of industry'.
However,
once technical advances in photographic printing had achieved
more permanent images at lower costs, photographs became more
widely used. The addition of original hand-made photographs
transformed book and periodical illustration until the late
nineteenth century, when various forms of the photo-mechanical
processes were introduced. It then became possible to transfer
the photographic image to the printing block, thus enabling
the mass, mechanical reproduction of an original photograph.
Annie
Gilbert
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