The critical contribution of Elisabeth Eastlake (1809-1893) to the debate on photography in the arts in the mid-19th century: the publication of “Photography” (1857) in the Quaterly Review
Abstract
In 1857, the art historian Elisabeth Eastlake wrote the first critical essay known to date on the historical and aesthetic dimension of photography in the context of the debate on the artistic nature of photography and its place in the arts. Aware and surprised about the way photography was altering traditional ways of representing the world, she tried to shed some light on the future of new art. Even reassuring the most conservative and illustrated public with a text in which she publicly proclaimed that the true, revolutionary and experimental potential of photography laid in its versatility to represent the present. This article focuses its interest on this contribution to the Art/Photography debate and analyzes the content of this pioneering essay published in the literary and political journal Quaterly Review.
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