The Very Impress of the Object: Sculpture and Photography from Fox-Talbot to the Present Day

The why and how works of art have been photographed since the mid-nineteenth century is a complex issue, and is explored here through photos of sculptors and their work.

During a lecture given in 1855, the reverend F.A.S. Marshall showed a photograph taken at Notre dame in Paris to his audience: “Look at the rich mass of sculpture over the west door… what more could you desire to bring before you the work and genius of the sculptor? What could be more truthful than this, the very impress of the object?”

Marshall’s emphasis on the ‘truthfulness’ of photography as a medium is an ongoing theme in discussions about photographing works of art. For more than a century and a half after Marshall’s lecture, viewers have continued to see the documentary value of photographic images of sculpture.

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), though using sculpted objects as subjects for his photographic experiments, considered photography a tool for the lazy artist unwilling or unable to undertake the tedious task of copying reality onto paper.

Despite Marshall and Fox Talbot’s claims, photography of sculpture is a distinct and separate field from sculpture itself. One photograph, or even a series of photographs, can never capture the sensation of seeing a sculpture in the round, where changes in light and shadow as well as the viewer’s position shifts appearances.