First impressions

THE revolution in human consciousness sparked by the invention of the photograph in 1839 provides a deep well of fascination. We will likely never get to the bottom of it.

Partly that’s because the contrivance gave powerful shape to the world in which we live. Seeing the forest for all those trees is not an easy task. The wilderness grows exponentially day by day.

That’s one reason a double-take greets an engrossing new show at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. “First Seen: Portraits of the World’s Peoples, 1840-1880” is built on a simple premise -- so simple it’s surprising it hasn’t been done before.

In the decades after Louis Jacques Daguerre in France and William Henry Fox Talbot in England announced, almost simultaneously, their discovery of different methods for making permanent images on light-sensitive materials, the No. 1 photography subject -- by far -- was the human face. (No doubt it still is.) A building, a tabletop still life or a natural landscape devoid of people and animals might seem to be more in keeping with the technical requirement in early photography for extreme stillness. Fidgety people don’t mesh well with long exposure times -- as much as a minute in strong light, according to a widely used 1863 photo manual.

But really, who would be surprised by what the father of photo history, Beaumont Newhall called the sudden explosion of “portraits for the million”? For most of recorded history, portraiture was reserved largely for the wealthy, given the expense in both time and money of rendering a likeness by hand. Within a few years the camera made portraits available to all but those suffering the most extreme poverty. And humble folk could be (and were) subject matter for curious cameramen. Photographs were instrumental in democratizing art.

“First Seen” starts with that familiar detail from early photographic history. Then the curators apply it to an abiding human curiosity about the unfamiliar. The show is composed of some of the first known photographs of men, women and children on every populated continent around the world.

What a terrific idea. The result manages to evoke some of the excitement that must have been felt way-back-when.

Imagine when an Indian fakir first laid eyes on a picture of Tasmanian Aborigines, a German doctor initially saw a limpid likeness of an exquisite Japanese woman, a Chinese soldier encountered a photograph of a regal African man or an American puzzled at the image of the “hairy people of Burma.” We take such visual rendezvous pretty much for granted now, so an exhibition that replaces complacency with delight is no mean achievement.

A gorgeous 1851 image of a hooded monk is something of a touchstone for the peculiar charms of “First Seen.” The photographer is unknown. So is the identity of the sitter. The monk is shown in profile, his black robe, hat and the hood covering his face silhouetted against a mottled white background. In the dirt at his feet, a half-circle provides a silent marker saying, metaphorically, “Stand here.”

That half-circle suggests a makeshift photo studio had been set up. Where was it? Who was next in line to be photographed? Another monk? Someone else? What was the image for? For whom was it taken?

The image shows a person in a secret ritual. Likewise, the photograph stands as a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

The show was made possible by the abundant resources of London’s Wilson Centre for Photography, established by screenwriter and producer Michael Wilson and his wife, Jane, from which all 239 photographs have been drawn. It was organized by Karen Sinsheimer, SBMA curator of photography, and Kathleen Stewart Howe, director since last year of the Pomona College Museum of Art. Two-thirds of the pictures in the show are reproduced in the first-rate catalog, which also features an excellent essay by Howe.

Photography fanned out from France and England with great rapidity, partly because the mid- to late-19th century coincided with an era of expansion in European colonialism. It was also a period of entrenchment for a political philosophy of nationalism. That doctrine held that sharing a common history, language, religion and ethnic background would strengthen the welfare of the nation-state. “First Seen” pictures, in one sense, an impressive array of ostensibly representative men and women for what was thought to be those common traits in nations.

The photographs are grouped by continent in the museum’s galleries, with the color of the walls changing as you arrive at a new place. Going through the easy-to-navigate show is a bit like going on a world tour.

These are vernacular photographs, by and large, made for purposes other than art. Few of the 59 identified photographers -- Felice Beato, Roger Fenton, the team of Hill and Adamson, William Henry Jackson, Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins and some others -- are well known. (With the exception of Marie-Lydie Cabanis, who worked with her husband and son in Beirut, all of them are men.) Some pictures were the product of science, meant to be an anthropological record. Others were tourist souvenirs, still others the routine work of commercial studios. A lot of them were the fruits of amateur passions, for the sheer pleasure of it.

That’s a positive attribute. In 1851, the still young medium of photography was transformed by the development of the collodion process -- basically, silver salts on glass plates -- which greatly simplified what had been the difficult, even clumsy techniques pioneered by Daguerre and Talbot. Ever increasing numbers of amateurs were attracted to making photographs -- a process that, in its short life, had become the narrow province of professionals. The nonprofessionals brought with them a livelier, more wide-ranging artistic diversity.

Some of these photographers used their cameras to articulate essential features of the human face, body and pose that might reveal (or assign) character. But most did not. And although the collodion process was a vast improvement, it still made for a rather limited range of portrait possibilities. In a show this large, considerable repetitiveness of pose and conventional lighting directs attention toward varied physical characteristics, such as facial features and clothing.

As art, many of the photographs -- and maybe even most -- are banal. But an interesting paradox emerges. Because the portraits in “First Seen” have no precedents, their banality is relative. Even when the aesthetic vision is commonplace, the subject matter is deeply compelling. You find yourself negotiating a curious relationship with the imagery, much the way the photographers had to negotiate with their no doubt surprised and unsuspecting sitters.

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‘First Seen: Portraits of the World’s Peoples (1840 -- 1880)’

Where: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara

When: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays

Ends: Jan. 15

Price: $9. Free on Sunday

Contact: (805) 963-4364, www.sbma.net