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Process and Perception

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James Nares: <em>Street</em>

James Nares: Street
(00:02:17) 17673 views

[Seated Female Nude]

Unknown 

Date:
ca. 1850
Medium:
Daguerreotype
Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.9 cm (3 9/16 x 2 11/16 in.)
Classification:
Photographs
Credit Line:
Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Accession Number:
2005.100.30
  • Description

    This daguerreotype was surely intended to serve artistic purposes, but the odd twist of the body and the strange relationship of the three visible limbs seem to render it inappropriate for artistic emulation. Such tension between an artistic ideal and realistic means—between the classicism of an academic pose and the awkwardness of the camera’s rendering of human movement—seems emblematic of the dilemma faced by the nascent medium striving to be an art.

  • Provenance

    [Oltremare S.A.]; Gilman Paper Company Collection, New York, June 5, 1990

190036295

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