CAS AH 287 Lecture Notes - Lecture 32: John Herschel, Walter Benjamin, Brushstrokes

• School: Boston University
• Department: History of Art & Architecture
• Course: CAS AH 287
• Professor: Jonathan Ribner

Document Summary

Both ca(cid:373)ero(cid:374)"s sir john herschel a(cid:374)d va(cid:374) gogh"s old peasant portray revolutionary ways of creating portraiture. The for(cid:373)er is a sil(cid:448)er pri(cid:374)t (cid:373)ade i(cid:374) fro(cid:373) a (cid:374)egati(cid:448)e i(cid:374) 1(cid:1012)(cid:1010)(cid:1011) (cid:449)hereas va(cid:374) gogh"s i(cid:373)age is a(cid:374) oil painting painted in 1888. Photography in the 19th century brought on new challenges, ways of viewing images, and perspe(cid:272)ti(cid:448)e of (cid:449)hat (cid:862)art(cid:863) is. The essence of photography, as walter benjamin outlined, introduced the concept of reproducibility and the fact that the subject of each photograph was once physically present for the camera to capture. He even says that we would readily choose to have a hazy, blurry photograph of shakespeare rather than an entire new masterpiece written by the renaissance genius, and he named this the (cid:862)e(cid:454)hi(cid:271)itio(cid:374)ar(cid:455) (cid:272)o(cid:373)ple(cid:454). (cid:863) I(cid:374) ca(cid:373)ero(cid:374)"s portrait of ir joh(cid:374) hers(cid:272)hel, the (cid:373)a(cid:374) depi(cid:272)ted sits i(cid:374) a frontal position and his age, combined with said ghostly qualities, creates an eerie feeling.