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Article: The art of the landscape daguerreotype.
- Article from:
- The Magazine Antiques
- Article date:
- September 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Until very recently the daguerreotype has been the least understood and appreciated art form of the nineteenth century. Most people have thought of daguerreotypes as small pictures of stiffly posed, unattractive men and women in old-fashioned clothes. Moreover, because of their reflective surface, they had to be held at a certain angle for the image to be easily seen. Daguerreotypes were not thought capable of rendering lyrical, painterly views such as Ship (Pl. III), California Mining Cemetery (Pl. IX), or New England Town Scene (Pl. XIV), which the renowned American landscape historian John Stilgoe called the work of "an anonymous genius."(1) Admittedly, there are some ...