Why didn’t people smile in old photos? You asked Google – and here’s the answer | Jonathan Jones

Every day, millions of internet users ask Google some of life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queries

As people asking Google this question have accurately observed, smiles are grimly absent from early photographs. Portraiture was at the heart of photography’s appeal from its very invention. In 1852, for instance, a girl posed for her Daguerreotype, her head slightly turned, giving the lens a steady, confident, unsmiling look. She is preserved forever as a very serious girl indeed.

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Today, we take so many smiling snaps the idea of anyone finding true depth and poetry in most of them is absurd.

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