A philosophical window
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14693165 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Geoffrey Batchen (0000-0003-0494-3789, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 100-112 |
| Publication date | 2002-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of Photography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0308-7298 • E-ISSN: 2150-7295 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03087298.2002.10443283 |
| OpenAlex | W2321870219 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 1 |
Talbot suggests we begin with windows, and, faithful to his wishes, this is what I will do. For the essay that follows is primarily about his photographs of a window. But it is also about a certain way of talking about them. It is fair to say that Talbot's actual pictures have, until fairly recently, received relatively little critical attention, except as exemplary instances of his technical processes. How often have we seen them reproduced without comment in survey histories of photography, as if they speak for themselves, or worse, as if they actually have nothing much to say about anything? And this despite the fact that Talbot himself wrote about his photographs as pictures, as artful compositions with discernible meanings and identifiable references. Nevertheless, it was not until the late 1980s that scholars began to take Talbot seriously as a picture-maker. Mike Weaver was among the first, persuasively arguing in 1986 that the choice and composition of a number of Talbot's images were informed by the photographer's literary and artistic interests; these images, Weaver went on to suggest, ‘produced a metaphorical rather than purely descriptive account of reality’.1
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Epistemology · Literature · Nothing · Photography · Visual arts · Computer Science · Philosophy · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory
| Citations per year | 0.23 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2019 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |