CMA: Photography

Untitled (Genre scene with four women and a man)

Untitled (Genre scene with four women and a man) https://clevelandart.org/art/1986.172

St. Bartholomews: The Green Churchyard on the Site of the Old South Transept

St. Bartholomews: The Green Churchyard on the Site of the Old South Transept https://clevelandart.org/art/1992.311

Frith often emulated the drawings of David Roberts in selecting monuments to illustrate and positions from which to shoot. Both artists encountered the temple at Kom Ombo still more than halfway buried in sand. “It reminds you of some grand old giant, buried to the shoulders,” wrote Frith, “not dead yet, but overpowered and imprisoned by some potent spell—majestic in his helplessness.” In his photographs, however, Frith cared less about emotional impact and more about the accuracy of his depictions. “A truthful record is of more value than the most elaborately beautiful picture,” he proclaimed.

Kom Ombo https://clevelandart.org/art/1986.193

Little is known about this gifted photographer who produced photographic studies of the landscape and rural motifs during the 1860s and 1870s. This image depicts a lovely wooded landscape scene flooded with sparkling sunlight and rich shadows. Of all the landscape photographers active in the 1870s, Famin produced the closest equivalent of impressionism in his work.

Untitled (The Forest of Fontainbleau) https://clevelandart.org/art/1988.167

Drury Lane Looking towards St. Mary-le-Strand

Drury Lane Looking towards St. Mary-le-Strand https://clevelandart.org/art/1992.310

Portrait of Julia Hall McCune (1882-1971)

Portrait of Julia Hall McCune (1882-1971) https://clevelandart.org/art/1980.175

The Buddha's death is called the parinirvana, which signals the moment when he moves into an eternal blissful state, free of any suffering or future rebirths. This state, known as nirvana, is the ultimate goal for followers of Buddhism.<br><br>During the 8th century, a colossal depiction of the Buddha's parinirvana was the focus of worship at a monastic establishment on the island of Sri Lanka off the southeastern coast of India. By the 19th century, the site had fallen into ruins, and commercial photographer Joseph Lawton was selected by the British Archaeological Committee in Kandy, Sri Lanka, to document the site. Lawton's intentional inclusion of a Sri Lankan figure in a posture of adoration and a colonial Englishman clambering over the ruins provides a sense of the sculpture's impressive scale.

The Paranirvana of Buddha, Gal Vihara, Polonnaruva, Ceylon https://clevelandart.org/art/1976.156

Depicting artists alongside one of their creations, a format borrowed from painting, identifies their occupation and advertises their abilities. Price, a noted painter, had a short but significant photography career between 1854 and 1862. Around 1858, he produced a portfolio of photographs of a dozen eminent British painters, including Irish historical painter Daniel Maclise. Emphasizing their professional status, he posed them in fine clothing amid the tools of their trade, including props and furniture. Johnston, a well-regarded painter in Cincinnati and later Baltimore, was also a camera operator for the Cincinnati branch of Whitehurst Studio. His far sparer self-portrait came from an album that contained his own and others’ photographs and clippings, including the Whitehurst photograph of Senator Pugh on the facing wall

Daniel Maclise (1806-1870) https://clevelandart.org/art/1994.19

Camera Work: Behind the Scenes

Camera Work: Behind the Scenes https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.16.c

Camera Work: Carlyle

Camera Work: Carlyle https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.41.a

Scott Monument Under Construction

Scott Monument Under Construction https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.23

Camera Work: A Gateway - Segovia

Camera Work: A Gateway - Segovia https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.45.h

View of Aswan - Along the Nile

View of Aswan - Along the Nile https://clevelandart.org/art/1993.94

The son of a wealthy Parisian banker, Robert Demachy's financial independence enabled him to pursue his interests in music and art. Beginning in the 1880s, he made photographs in the pictorial style and in 1894 began to use the gum bichromate process, which allowed considerable handwork to be done on the print. Demachy was a prominent defender of the use of manipulative printing techniques, and wrote more than a thousand articles and numerous books on the technical processes and issues involved. With their soft details, reminiscent of Impressionist paintings, his photographs were greatly admired by his contemporaries.

Untitled https://clevelandart.org/art/1985.203

Ornamental Scupture

Ornamental Scupture https://clevelandart.org/art/1990.116

A successful timber merchant in the Hackney area of London and photographer, Alfred Rosling is known for several bodies of photographic work. His earliest photographs were made for a stereoscope establishment, but he later became interested in taking landscape photographs and became very well connected with many British photographic circles. In addition to picturesque views of Surrey, he spent time in South Wales where Harbor, Swansea, Wales was taken. There he met John Dillwyn Llewelyn and likely the Reverend Calvert Richard Jones, Jr., as well as others in the Swansea photographic circle. His son-in-law, Frances Frith, published a number of Rosling's landscape prints.

Harbour, Swansea, Wales https://clevelandart.org/art/1996.353

Echo Cliffs, Grand River Canyon

Echo Cliffs, Grand River Canyon https://clevelandart.org/art/2003.292

From 1901 until his death in 1927, Atget devoted much of his time to documenting châteaus and parks in and around Paris. Initially and most frequently, he was attracted to the gardens of Versailles, first working there until 1906. This intriguing detail of the Fountain of Triumphant France isolates two of its three allegorical figures: the seated representation of the French Empire behind Jean-Baptiste Tubi’s sculpture denoting Spain. The fountain was commissioned by Louis XIV to celebrate the French victory over Spain and Holland. The sharply focused composition filled with decorative and sculptural details is typical of Atget’s early photographs, which he understood to be "documents for artists"—raw material for painters, sculptors, stage designers, and craftsmen.

Versailles, Fountain of Triumphant France https://clevelandart.org/art/1985.114

Oak Trees in a Graveyard

Oak Trees in a Graveyard https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.20

Bullock Cart, Delhi

Bullock Cart, Delhi https://clevelandart.org/art/2018.36

Camera Work: The Marquis of Northampton

Camera Work: The Marquis of Northampton https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.37.b

Camera Work: The Terminal

Camera Work: The Terminal https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.36.o

Camera Work: On a Dutch Shore

Camera Work: On a Dutch Shore https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.8.b

Nadar was a journalist, novelist, cartoonist, balloonist, lithographer, and, beginning in 1849, photographer. Like Brady’s establishments in America, Nadar’s Parisian studio quickly became a center for celebrity photography, selling compelling images of the major political and cultural figures of the time. Nadar avoided symbolic props and elaborate backgrounds; he let his sitters choose their own pose, putting them at ease enough to reveal glimpses of their true character. Dumas, one of France’s most popular authors, wrote <em>The Three Musketeers.</em> The year this portrait was made, he and Nadar were hoping to collaborate on a play, but their only joint production seems to have been this casual, intimate portrait.

Alexandre Dumas père (1802-1870) https://clevelandart.org/art/1983.198

Camera Work: Toucques Valley

Camera Work: Toucques Valley https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.16.a

Camera Work: Dr. Munro

Camera Work: Dr. Munro https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.11.a

Camera Work: Lady in Black

Camera Work: Lady in Black https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.37.f

Among the earliest photographers to explore both the artistic and societal possibilities of the portrait were the painter David Octavius Hill and engineer Robert Adamson, partners for just three years before Adamson’s death. Elizabeth Rigby<em>,</em>seen here at age 35, went on to marry Sir Charles Eastlake and, in 1857, to write one of the first histories of photography as a fine art. James Nasmyth, an engineer who developed the steam hammer, holds a compass. Hill and Adamson often shot outdoors because bright sunlight allowed shorter exposure times. They subordinated the background in shadow and bathed the important details of the face and finery in areas of light.

Elizabeth Rigby, later Lady Eastlake (1809-1893) https://clevelandart.org/art/1987.16

Taking up photography in his teens, Samuel Bourne soon achieved recognition for both his superb technical skills and keen aesthetic talents. When he sailed to India in late 1862, he left a banking career to pursue his passion for photography . He hoped to use his camera throughout the country and to write about his experiences for the British Journal of Photography. This charming photograph of a bridge filled with small huts demonstrates his creative ability to organize the random environment. His lively use of light and shade clearly defines the elements of architecture and landscape. The photographer allowed a favorite, early interest in water to dominate this picturesque image of Jaipur, which was founded in 1727 by Maharajah Jai Singh II. By the beginning of the 21st century, this small town had developed into a commercial city with a population of well over two million.

Bridge of Shops, Srinagar, Kashmir https://clevelandart.org/art/1994.185

Camera Work: The Asphalt Paver; New York

Camera Work: The Asphalt Paver; New York https://clevelandart.org/art/1995.199.41.h