The Forms of Nameless Things - Experimental Photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot (Hardcover)

William Henry Fox Talbot, the English inventor of photography, created around 15,000 photographs in the nineteenth century, most of them attempts to produce compelling scientific documents or pictorial records of the world around him. However, among those that have survived are also prints in which an image has been obscured, obliterated or simply failed to register. Borrowing its intriguing title from a poem written by Talbot, this book features twenty-four of these prints, his most experimental photographs. Originally intended as test prints or creative exercises, all that remains on these shaped pieces of photographic paper are chemical stains or imprinted patterns or shapes. Offered to the reader as enigmatic physical artefacts, these failed or ruined photographs are here reanimated as objects of beauty, mystery and promise, as artworks that speak of photography's most fundamental attributes and potentials. An accompanying essay illustrated with comparative images places these photographs in a broad historical context leading up to the present, revealing what relevance Talbot's experiments have to contemporary concepts of the art of photography.

General

Imprint:	Bodleian Library
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	November 2022
First published:	2022
Authors:	Geoffrey Batchen
Dimensions:	259 x 237 x 16mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover - Sewn / Paper over boards
Pages:	80
ISBN-13:	978-1-85124-593-2
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > General Books > Arts & Architecture > Photography & photographs > Individual photographers Books > Arts & Architecture > Photography & photographs > Photographic collections > General Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history
LSN:	1-85124-593-6
Barcode:	9781851245932

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