Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Willia</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">m Gilpin</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">’s </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">instructed readers in how to enjoy the landscapes of England’s Lake District, and was illustrated with <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aqtn/hd_aqtn.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">aquatints</a> (a type of <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/e/etching" target="_blank" rel="noopener">etching</a>) based on Gilpin's drawings. <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/william-gilpin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gilpin</a> encouraged his readers to create sketches from nature and to tweak what they saw in order to create </span>picturesque drawings<span style="font-weight: 400;">. Gilpin described the <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/picturesque" target="_blank" rel="noopener">picturesque</a> as a type of view that offered a middleground between the peacefulness of a beautiful landscape and the thrill of a <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/sublime" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sublime landscape</a>. </span></p>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Gilpin’s popularization of sketching </span><a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/what-is-the-picturesque-" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">picturesque scenery</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> played a role in William Henry Fox Talbot's </span><a href="https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/sun-pictures-henry-fox-talbot-and-first-photographs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discovery of photography</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">. It was when he was sketching the picturesque landscape of Italy that Talbot grew frustrated, and began imagining how much easier life could be if nature could just imprint itself onto a piece of paper.<br /><br />Many of the landscape views that would be created photographically in the centuries to come followed the formula of </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">picturesque scenery popularized by Gilpin. <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3060"><em>Views of Portree</em></a> offers an excellent example; some of its views seem to come straight out of Gilpin's sketchbooks. Some albums and <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/memory-and-identity/1900-to-1969/souvenir-books">souvenir books</a> focus on <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3147">sublime landscapes</a>, while others include <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3148">both conventions side by side</a>. <br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> <br />A full scan of Gilpin’s book is available through the <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924104095298/page/n6/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Internet Archive</a>.<br /></span>
William Gilpin (author and artist)
1792
22.0 x 12.3 cm
DA 620 G49 1792
A System of Phrenology
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The title page of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">A System of Phrenology </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">boasts that the volume</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">features “upward of one hundred engravings.” Photography had been discovered by the time the book was published, but the dominant processes of the time</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (the <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3125">daguerreotype</a> and the calotype) did not offer </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">an efficient or practical method of circulating knowledge alongside printed text. </span></p>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The system of </span><a href="https://victorianweb.org/science/phrenology/intro.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">phrenology</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> described in this volume is closely related to the Victorian practice of physiognomy. Described today as pseudosciences, phrenology and </span><a href="https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/physiognomy-the-beautiful-pseudoscience/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">physiognomy</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> posited that an individual’s exterior features revealed aspects of their character. Later, </span><a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/301897" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Francis Galton</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> would use photography as a tool to both investigate and circulate physiognomic principles, and Charles Darwin would use photographs to examine <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3145">human emotion</a>. <br /><br />A full scan of this item is available through the <a href="https://archive.org/details/101519023.nlm.nih.gov/page/n4/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Internet Archive</a>.<br /></span>
George Combe (author)
J. J. Butler (engraver)
1844
19.0 x 11.3 cm
BF 870 C72 1844
The Aurelian: A Natural History of English Moths and Butterflies
<p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Aurelian: A Natural History of English Moths and Butterflies </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">was created by English entomologist and artist </span><a href="https://wonder-cabinet.sites.gettysburg.edu/artful-nature/merian-and-her-context/moses-harris-the-aurelian-and-the-mania-for-insects-and-tulips/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Moses Harris</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. The book’s title page explains that its pictures were “drawn, engraved and coloured from the natural subjects.” </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Harris’s hand-coloured engravings are remarkable, and he went on to become known as a colour theorist after publishing a </span><a href="https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2013/07/04/rare-copy-of-moses-harriss-natural-system-of-colours-on-display-at-the-royal-pavilion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">treatise on colour</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that also features hand-coloured plates.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The frontispiece (the image facing the title page) features a portrait of a man, presumably representing Harris himself, offering us a tray of specimens with his left hand while pointing into a wooded landscape with his right hand. When we follow his gesture, we see the same man engaged in the labour of collecting moths and butterflies. By selecting this image as the frontispiece, Harris seems to emphasize the presence of an expert as a guide. In contrast, photographic collections of scientific specimens often have the effect of effacing the presence of their makers. For example, compare </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Aurelian </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">to an entomological album </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">from 1875, </span><a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3156"><em>Anatomical Illustrations of the Bee</em></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></i></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The copy of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Aurelian </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">housed in Bruce Peel Special Collections and featured here is a composite of pages from the first and second editions, published in 1766 and 1778, respectively, and brought together by a previous owner. Subsequent editions were published into the nineteenth century, as can be seen from this </span><a href="https://archive.org/details/Aurelian00Harr/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">full scan of an edition of 1840</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. <br /><br /></span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Aurelian </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">forms part of the <a href="https://bpsc.library.ualberta.ca/collections/dr-ronald-b-madge-entomology-collection" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr </a></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://bpsc.library.ualberta.ca/collections/dr-ronald-b-madge-entomology-collection" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ronald B. Madge Entomology Collection</a>.</span></p>
Moses Harris (creator)
1766
38.6 x 26.0 cm
QL 555 G7 H318 1766 folio
Animisme et Spiritisme
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The practice known as </span><a href="https://history.nebraska.gov/blog/spirit-photography" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spirit photography</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> pushes the limits of what we consider photographic by seeking to represent the spiritual, rather than the physical and visible, on the photographic plate. </span><span>The practice of spirit photography also points towards nineteenth-century tendencies to manipulate the image</span><span>—</span><span>a kind of photoshop before photoshop. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Though we don’t consider a belief in spirits “scientific” today, this practice holds similarities to scientific practices that have sought to capture what is invisible to the human eye photographically, such as <a href="http://100photos.time.com/photos/wilhelm-conrad-rontgen-first-x-ray" target="_blank" rel="noopener">x-ray photographs</a> and </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Muybridge’s <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3153">motion photographs</a>. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Of course the extent to which each of these examples is manipulated to produce an image of what was previously invisible varies. One of the most well-known nineteenth-century spirit photographers is <a href="https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-159-spiritual-developments-2-26-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">William Mumler</a>, who claimed to have photographed Abraham Lincoln's ghost. <br /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You will notice that <em>Animisme et Spiritisme </em>(Animism and Spiritualism) does not actually contain any photographs. Rather, it contains </span>engravings<span style="font-weight: 400;"> based on photographs, attesting to the continued difficulties of printing photographs side by side with text in an efficient manner. Yet it is noteworthy that the texts framing the engravings insist on their photographic origins. <br /><br />A full scan of this item is available through the <a href="https://archive.org/details/animismeetspiri00sandgoog/page/n10/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Internet Archive</a>.<br /><br /><br /></span></p>
Alexandre Aksakof (author)
photographer unknown
1895
21.4 x 13.0 cm
BF 1262 A32 1895
<p></p>
Encyclopédie
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The twenty-eight volumes of the <i>Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une societé de gens de lettres</i></span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">(also known as the <i>Encyclopédie</i></span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">) </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">was originally published in Paris between 1751 and 1772. The edition of the <i>Encyclopédie </i>held by Bruce Peel Special Collections was published in Geneva from 1771 to 1776. <br /><br />As an attempt to gather together and order all of the knowledge of the world, the </span><a href="https://library.wustl.edu/a-revolutionary-encyclopedia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Encyclopédie</span></i></a><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">is a representative </span><a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/rococo-neoclassicism/rococo/a/a-beginners-guide-to-the-age-of-enlightenment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Enlightenment</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> project (Bull 6-9). </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">With its eleven volumes of illustrations created by copperplate </span><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/e/engraving" target="_blank" rel="noopener">engravings</a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Encyclopédie </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">also provides an example of how illustrations could be reproduced and disseminated prior to the discovery of photography. The images and texts were printed in separate volumes since they required two different techniques for printing. <br /><br />One of the plates shown here portrays a print shop, and shows how such illustrations would have been created. The print has an</span> <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/what-is-photography">indexical</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> relationship with the inked plate, but unlike a photograph, it does not hold an indexical relationship to t</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">he thing that-is-seen in the illustration. <br /><br /></span>Another plate, captioned "Optique," explains the <a href="http://www.photographyhistoryfacts.com/photography-development-history/camera-obscura-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">principles of the camera obscura</a>, an enclosed box that could project the view from the outside world into its interior. The earliest photographs were created by combining the camera obscura with light-sensitive materials that could fix the view as a stable image. Note in particular the two pictures at the bottom of the page; the picture on the left demonstrates the principles of the camera obscura, while the picture on the right portrays a portable camera obscura with an added lens. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me5ke7agyOw&t=145s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Camera obscuras</a> like this one had been in use since at least the sixteenth century.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: 400;">Browse the <i>Encyclopédie</i>'s articles and plates at the <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project</a>.</span></p>
Denis Diderot (author)
Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (author)
Pierre Mouchon (author)
1771
43.0 x 26.0 cm
AE 25 E56 1771 folio
The Art of Swimming
<em>The Art of Swimming</em> was published before the discovery of photography and includes <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/e/engraving" target="_blank" rel="noopener">engravings</a> as a means of circulating knowledge. As explained by the subtitle, the book contains "forty proper <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/curatorial-departments/drawings-and-prints/materials-and-techniques/printmaking/engraving#:~:text=Engraving%20is%20an%20intaglio%20printmaking,made%20of%20copper%20or%20zinc.&text=When%20pressure%20is%20applied%2C%20the,or%20groove%20in%20the%20plate." target="_blank" rel="noopener">copper-plate cuts</a>, which represent the different postures necessary to be used in that art, with advice for bathing."
Thévenot Melchisédec (author)
Barth Warren Sculp (engraver)
1764
8.0 x 5.3 cm
GV 837 T42 1764
Miscellaneous Objects as Seen With and Without the Microscope
<p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Miscellaneous Objects as Seen With and Without the Microscope</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> predates the introduction of photography. The visual notes it contains depend entirely on the artist's ability to not only record their observations, but to also remember what was seen through the microscope when they refocused on the page. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 1839, <a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1969/william-henry-fox-talbot-english-1800-1877/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">William Henry Fox Talbot</a> speculated on the application of photography to the microscope:</span></p>
<blockquote>The objects which the microscope unfolds to our view, curious and wonderful as they are, are often singularly complicated. The eye, indeed, many comprehend the whole which is presented to it in the field of view; but the powers of the pencil fail to express these minutiae of nature in their innumerable details. What artist could have skill or patience enough to copy them? or granting that he [<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">sic</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">]</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">could do so, must it not be at the expense of much most valuable time, which might be more usefully employed? Contemplating the beautiful picture which the solar microscope produces, the thought struck me, whether it might not be possible to cause that image to impress itself upon the paper, and thus to let Nature substitute her own inimitable pencil, for the imperfect, tedious, and almost hopeless attempt of copying a subject so intricate. (quoted in Goldberg 43)</span></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Compare this example to an <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3156">album of anatomical illustrations of a bee</a> from 1875</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which includes photomicrographs.</span></p>
creator unknown
[1820]
15.8 x 9.4 cm
QL 466 M58 1820