Painting with Light: Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelite to the Modern Age

by Carol Jacobi (Editor), Hope Kingsley (Editor)

Photography was entangled with art from the very moment of its invention by painter and printmaker Louis Daguerre in 1839. Painting with Light is the first book to look at photography’s complex and fascinating inter-relationship with painting and sculpture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Opening with the experimental beginnings of the medium in the 1830s and 40s, the book spans 75 years, from the daguerreotype to very early color photography, including the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and ravishing Symbolist and Pictorialist works, including landscapes and life studies, documentary and scientific realism, and images that experimented with atmospheric and psychological effects. It uncovers the issues raised by exchanges between photography and other media, many of them still alive today, from the question of copying vs. creating and truth vs. lies to artist vs. machine and tradition vs. modernity.
Mixing iconic and rarely seen works, Painting with Light includes over 100 reproductions and refreshing new insights.

Genres: Photography, Art

128 pages, Paperback

Published September 20, 2016

Reviews

[Ian Bayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Might not be for everyone but I really enjoyed this book that describes and compares the work of early photographers with painters. Today photography is often considered an occupation needing little skill and no talent, the book demonstrates how composition and artistic judgement raises a photograph from a record to a piece of art.