These discussions have drifted from a sort of focus on daguerreotypes to land for a while on stereo views. I might as well go deeper into this. And deeper we must go if we are to get to the heart of stereoscopy, because “depth” is one of the axes around which this discussion will form.
A. INTO THE DEEP
I just realized how appropriate it is to have chosen a view of a man in a diving suit as an emblem of this current auction. But stereo views invite us to dive in with our eyes alone. The pleasurable play of representing space on a flat plane has been one of the endeavors of art from cave painting to “modern art” and even cubism and abstract expressionism and minimalism have just turned out to be part of the long fascination with the effort to recreate or distort or negate the pull towards representing the “real world” in a two-dimensional medium, with Renaissance perspective as the farthest-out pole in one direction. Stereoscopy preceded photography, with various devices that stimulated the viewer to see images in depth by presenting one eye with a slightly displaced image of what was offered to the other eye. So with the invention of photography it was only natural to bring the illusion of reality to an even higher pitch by creating stereoscopic photographs. Of the two earliest media (paper prints, daguerreotypes) it was the more illusionist medium of the daguerreotype that first embraced stereoscopy.
Stereoscopic daguerreotypes were (and still are) luxury items. Many subjects are represented, in particular erotic ones, but also scenes, portraits. In the U.S. the Mascher case was favored. It contained a pair of daguerreotypes and a viewer that folded out to allow them to be seen as a single image in depth. Many of the major daguerreotypists also produced work in stereo, for example Claudet and T. R. Williams in England. In the US Southworth & Hawes produced a few examples of their “Grand Parlor Stereoscope” [which used whole plates!] but Broadbent, Vance, Hessler, Meade and many others made stereoscopic daguerreotypes (Langenheim in particular but also Babbitt and others did great work in glass stereoscopic views.)
With the advent of albumen printing, card-mounted stereo views swept the world. For those whose interest is primarily in larger-format prints, which still represent the “norm” of photographs for most people, it is worth thinking about what it means that just about every major 19th-century photographer did abundant significant work in stereo. In the US this includes O’Sullivan, Gardner, Barnard, Russell, Jackson, Hillers, Watkins, Muybridge (and of course many others whose major work is primarily their stereoscopic production.)
It is sometimes said that these artists produced stereo views as “commercial” ventures (as opposed to their “artistic” work in large formats), but this is only a self-serving myth for those who want to maintain the concept of the supremacy of the “wall” over the “hand” (See Newsletter #4.) In truth, while stereo views were more “democratic” – more available to the less affluent—I don’t think there is any evidence that any of those photographers made more money producing stereo views than in any other aspect of their work. Then as now the larger prints, albums, series, private and government commissions, were actually or potentially greater sources of income.
It is obvious that those artists were FASCINATED by the challenge of composing works in depth as well as on a flat surface, and a careful study of their stereo work and comparisons of their stereoscopic photography with their two-dimensional prints is essential for an understanding of 19th-century photography. Oddly, such a study has not been done. Only in a few cases has the stereoscopic work been included as a “side” issue in the examination of a photographer’s work, but rarely from the perspective of depth composition in comparison with “flat” composition.
B. SPACE/TIME
Here is a scan of a late (ca. 1930) stereo view that happened to come my way the other day, as an obvious example of something that has been conceived and composed as a stereoscopic work. While some things can be guessed at from just looking at the scan, only in a viewer, where the scene becomes large and fills almost the entire field of vision from side to side and front to back, can the details be fully savored. One can spend time roaming around the scene enjoying details and the special relationship among and between the elements. While obvious here, this element is present in every great stereo view. There are hidden surprises in views that hardly seem so exciting when looked at directly—for example those waterfall scenes so beloved of the 19th-century photographers.
Creating rewarding experiences for the viewer is precisely the mastery shown in the great stereo works of the artists named above. For those who haven’t had the experience, it is well worth spending the time to “get” it.
The other day a friend mentioned his displeasure at the un-natural layering he found in looking at stereo views. Partly this is “corrected” by using a better viewer. It is something mastered by the greatest stereo composers. But also it is precisely one of the joys of stereo views—that they are artifacts and not pure simulacra of reality, no more than a daguerreotype is a “mirror image” of the person depicted. The very artifice of it is what allows us to explore the space in the view of the attached scan in a way we would or could never do if we were actually in that playground. What a playground this is for the enlightened viewer!
However pleasurable it is to play with stereographic space, for most of today’s collectors it is the “journey back in time” that is paramount. (But the landscape is the great subject of 19th-century American painting and photography!) The views that generate the most excitement are those that were taken at times and places that were historically significant—in the US this includes the Civil War and the great development of the West—mining, the development of the railroads and the western towns and cities, the struggles of and with the Indians, and other such subjects. The greatest views are those that combine historic representation with great composition in spaceThere is also a great attraction to place (distinct from “space.”) Many collections are organized around geographic regions. From the start views were collected as remembrances of places visited, or visits to distant places as “armchair travel.”
C. PATHS
The need to mount the pair of albumen prints on a paper board allowed the support itself to become a vehicle of design and information. The shape, surface and color of the mount became a source of differentiation. The margins and back allowed printing of titles, numbers, descriptions, advertising. This is different from the need that daguerreotypes had for cases, mats and other surrounds. The case became a beautiful as well as a serviceable adjunct to the plate, but the rare imprints and designs on the pad rarely contained printed texts. Cartes de visite and later cabinet cards also carried imprinted material on the margins and backs, but the common placement into albums typically hid all but the main image—the mounts were often cut down to fit into the album more easily. Today’s collectors often keep the cdv’s and cabinet cards in sleeves that expose the mounts completely. But stereo views always had their mounts exposed.
The printing of numbers and titles and similar or different mounts invited multiple paths of collecting right from the start. Stereo view collections, like other collections, typically start from small even random elements, but they have a way of growing faster and in more directions than many other types of photographs. Typical collections number hundreds and even many thousands examples, and keep growing in often unexpected ways.