ART REVIEW : Dazzling Show of Early Photos

When Abraham Lincoln posed for Alexander Gardner on a Civil War battlefield in 1862, he refused to wear the head brace that pioneering photographers inflicted on their subjects to prevent the squirming that could turn a picture into a puddle of fuzz. As we all know, Lincoln was under a lot of stress at the time, and he flinched ever so slightly; his blurred visage gives us some idea of the rigid controls photographers were forced to deal with when the camera was a newly invented mystery.

Simultaneously discovered in 1839 by Britain’s William Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Jacques-Mande Daguerre of France, the camera was patented by Talbot in 1851, and over the course of the next 38 years, photography progressed like wildfire on several fronts. Evolving from an exotic curiosity to a popular means of communication, the camera made enormous aesthetic and technical strides during the latter half of the 19th Century; this spurt of growth is the subject of “Experimental Photography: The First Golden Age,” on view at the Getty Museum through June 25.

The second of the museum’s yearlong series of exhibitions tracing the history of photography held in honor of its 150th birthday, “Experimental Photography” includes early examples of nearly every photographic school popular today. Portraiture, still life, documentary, landscape, staged “fictional” pictures, painterly photographs--they’re all present and accounted for, and one comes away from this dazzling show convinced that in the world of photography, there is nothing new under the sun. (The only photographic styles in short supply here are re-photography and the candid shot--although the impulse, if not the means, for camera verite is clearly apparent in some of the work.)

This first flowering of photography was international in scope, and the show includes work from Britain, the United States, Brazil, France, Italy and Chile.

While the show is installed in terms of photographic issues rather than region, the work tends to fall into three larger categories: pictures of historical significance, images that are intriguing for the details peculiar to the period in which they were shot, and works that are simply visually powerful.

These distinctions aside, all the pictures are rooted in a spirit of experimentation. Before 1851 the only lucrative commercial application of photography was portraiture; this show functions as a visual chronicle of artists’ increasing comfort in the photographic realm--we can see them beginning to loosen up and have some fun with the camera.

Britain’s Roger Fenton attempted something a bit naughty in “Costume Study” from 1858. We see a sultry dancing girl posed in an exotic setting, but alas, the picture is more comical than provocative due to the fact that the hapless vamp’s arms are held aloft by cords attached to the ceiling. Frenchman Charles Aubry shot still life arrangements intended for use as reference by painters and designers, while Britisher Julia Margaret Cameron experimented with dramatic lighting and soft focus, creating moody pictures that introduced poetic and philosophical ideas to photography.

Trained as a painter, Andre Giroux was among the first to retouch his negatives in order to achieve painterly effects with the camera. His haunting landscapes are among the most beautiful works in the show and have much in common with the Impressionist painters of his day. Frenchman Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, (who went by the pseudonym Nadar, and was known for his portraits of the Paris in crowd), created an illusion of informality in his images, despite the fact that his photo sessions were rigidly controlled.

This may not seem like a big deal now, but in a sense, it marks photographers’ dawning realization that they could cheat with the camera--could, in fact, make it lie. Britain’s Henry Peach Robinson built an entire stage for “When the Day’s Work Is Done,” a richly detailed study of an elderly couple sitting together in a humble room at dusk. Straight from central casting, the lovable granny does needlework, while hubby reads the Bible. Highly theatrical and completely composed, the image can be viewed as pure fabrication.

While many artists were moving photography forward ideologically, others were struggling to train the camera to record current events; this was no mean feat considering that early photographic subjects had to remain absolutely still in order to get a clear picture. Italian team Gioacchino Altobelli and Pompeo Molins succeeded in capturing Pope Pius IX speaking from a train, while Louis Emile Durandelle immortalized the construction of the Eiffel Tower, and Roger Fenton covered the battlefields of the Crimean War.

Those with but a passing interest in the history of photography are apt to find the images of America the most moving works in the show. As much an adolescent as photography was at the time, the United States is seen here as a robust frontier of opportunity and hope. James Creamer’s image of the christening of a ship in Philadelphia is noteworthy for the vast, empty horizon that looms behind the virgin ship; it’s hard to believe that Philadelphia was ever that empty and clean.

One of the great mysteries of photography is the scarcity of early views of Manhattan, and a rare shot of lower Broadway by William B. (or Silas A.) Holmes reveals that the street hasn’t changed all that much in 150 years (this may in part account for the enduring magic of New York). A picture from 1867 by Alexander Gardner titled “Depot, St. Louis, Missouri,” conveys the innocence and energy of any and all frontiers, and reads as an eloquent metaphor for the sense of boundless possibility that photographers must have felt at the time.