Description
Book SynopsisVered Maimon shows that the perception of the photographic image in early nineteenth-century England was symptomatic of a crisis in the epistemological framework that had informed philosophical, scientific, and aesthetic thought for two centuries.
Trade Review"Singular Images, Failed Copies offers a significant contribution to the scholarship on William Henry Fox Talbot and the scientific and philosophical climate in which he produced his photographs."—Frederick Gross, Savannah College of Art and Design
"A striking new analysis of William Henry Fox Talbot’s famous ‘pencil of nature’ botanical photos as diagram rather than index, Singular Images, Failed Copies argues against familiar ideas of the photograph in relation to objectivity or impersonality. Vered Maimon revisits from a fresh angle questions about photography and its role in art, science, and society."—John Rajchman, Columbia University
"Singualar Images, Failed Copies will take its rightful place as an important addition to the literature on both the history of early photography. . . and the espistemological changes of the early years of the nineteenth century."—Leonardo Reviews
Table of ContentsContents
Introduction: The Photographic Imagination
Part I
1. Method: The Engine of Knowledge
2. Imagination: The Art of Discovery
Part II
3. Time: Singular Images, Failed Copies
4. History: Displaced Origins and The Pencil of Nature
Acknowledgments
Appendixes
Notes
Index
