Antiquity and Photography - Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites (Art Ebook).pdf

C.L. Lyons, J.K. Papadopoulos, L.S. Stewart, A. Szegedy-Maszak, "Antiquity and Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites"
Getty | 2005 | ISBN: 0892368055 | English | PDF | 240 pages | 32.14 Mb

The invention of the daguerreotype and calotype processes fundamentally changed scholarly and aesthetic approaches to the past. The accuracy and immediacy of photographs gave scientists a new means to document and study ancient architecture, artifacts, and language. At the same, the first photographers to visit ancient Mediterranean sites saw themselves as artists using the new medium to capture what had up to then been represented only by draftsmen or painters. The early photographs were rapidly disseminated among a wider audience eager to see, rather than merely imagine, the remnants of antiquity. Today these images are still prized, both for their vision and originality and for their inherent documentary value. The early photographs of the Roman Forum, the Acropolis in Athens, and the pyramids of Giza have made these sites a part of our shared cultural experience, fixing them in our minds as places of historic and mythic significance.

Antiquity and Photography explores the influence of photography on archaeology between 1840 and 1880. This was the period that saw the evolution of archaeology as a professional discipline as well as the rapid growth of the new photographic medium.