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Trapping Apparitions
Daguerreotypes, Mirrors and Mementoes.
By Shaun Caton
Likeness
Beneath the sun's rheumy eye
a somnambulant queue
shuffles unsteadily
into the occluded ground lens.
a line of plane trees
atop the concrete façade
augments the citadel
of infamy -
whose vortices of whorled dust
form pictures from reclaimed dreams.
The mirrored image
Flashes brilliantly; illuminating sunspots.
Awakens the captured dead momentarily
Through the vapours and imprints of voyeurs
Part One: That What Was
A small contingent of early English daguerreotypes found their way to me through an imponderable series of transactions and exchanges, loosely wrapped in a cobalt blue cloth and contained inside a battered papered box. After an initial inspection I determined two of the portraits to be by Antoine Claudet (1797-1867) made at his Adelaide Gallery in circa 1843 (I shall elaborate on these images further). Separated by time and death from their original owners and assuming the nomenclature of 'anonymous persons' I felt they had a tale to evince through their infinitely stubborn silence and called upon the poetic principle of examination to elucidate a hint of meaning. The process of uncovering a clandestine history is made all the more satisfying by complete absorption and osmosis with the subject. The capturing of the likeness on the daguerreotypes' lustrous silvered plate has left us with indiscriminate clues as to the sitter's social standing, appearance, particular age, state of health, and fashionable status etc...
Holding the mirror image out of time and attempting to infuse it with contemporary reading skills can yield worthwhile information with the application of painstaking research and a kind of seasoned poetic sensibility. One can achieve a periodic symbiosis with the object by exposure to the literature, music, visual and plastic arts combined with a rudimentary trawl through the philosophy of the period. It is therefore necessary to read a daguerreotype on many alternate, inter-related and fluctuating levels of perception in order to get closer to the sense of life having been lived, of it remaining a constant reminder of life held in suspended animation within the simulacrum. This feeling of fleetingness is as subtle as a faltering or cursory glance, as fragile as a dim and fading memory at the very point where life slips into death. Yet within the rectangular confines of the daguerreotype the sitter is momentarily saved from inexorable destruction in the form of a photographic trace (to borrow a concept from the poet-philosopher Walter Benjamin), a spirited split second duplicate, and an illuminated facsimile in holographic form. I also liken daguerreotypes to skeins of skin both in terms of ownership and the chronological shedding of custodial curatorship. How many previous collectors have held the daguerreotype in the palm of their hand before us? Where they too connoisseurs of these little enigmas? How many transactions have taken place between the object and successive owners? The interchanges between hands, eyes and currencies are incalculable.
Daguerreotypes are rare because they are pockets of visual history and permit us to squint at what life looked like 150-160 years ago. As a concept prone to exaggeration rarity dictates the ultimate value and aesthetic meaning of many daguerreotypes. However, these preoccupations aside, I am drawn to images that evince a notion of a story, albeit a vapourised and ghostly semblance of a tale that characterises and emboldens a vision of (middle class) English life during the 1840's - now all but vanished. Save for the crumbling edifices of Victorian architecture and the plethora of relics commonly termed 'antiques' the daguerreotype provides the most clues and insight into the period 1839-60. Despite the strangeness and sumptuousness of the fashions depicted in the daguerreotypes one is able to relate to the people's expressions and although unable to touch them through the veil of history, time and death, one is capable of imagining them being alive again through the marvellously convincing quality of the photographic image.
Thus, it can be concluded that no one reading of a daguerreotype is correct or factual. There are indeed, many readings which are possible. If we seek answers we only encounter more questions and draw more blanks. In searching for the truth we must trust our inner sensibilities and the accrued knowledge of history to entertain a 'memorable fancy 'with the images from the dawn of photography.
The metaphor of skin is a fascinating vehicle for appropriation: literally, the image is contained in a polished leather skin case (pig, calf etc...) and is held in the palpitating, moist hand of a living voyeur as it yields itself to a closer inspection of eyes (eyelids - the orbital coverlets of illumination?). This notion of skin deteriorating, or disintegrating, and photography chemically degrading through advancing age is an interesting comparative phenomenon too. Who cannot marvel at a daguerreotypes' beautiful blue bloom of tarnish forming a natural vignette or fuzzy halo around the subject? Such ectoplasmic emergences are precursors of the later craze of spirit photography (1860's - 1900's). This was quite literally, the alleged capturing of ghosts in the machine (camera). Double exposures and manipulated photographic plates gave the illusion of supernatural manifestations. Also, the packaging of the daguerreotype (particularly European plates) is particularly akin to the flaking and exfoliation of human skin: passepartout frames were constructed from brittle acidic cardboard, newspaper, fish glue, tape and backing paper - usually cerulean or yellow in colour. One can see worm holes in the backing card boring into the reverse leaving a tracery of conduits and tunnels of transference. Within this aspect of decay there is something heinous and appalling. The miniscule meanderings of history are marked out in a cuneiform calligraphy reminiscent of tattoos and blemishes on the human body. Perhaps too, those hastily scrawled notes that are written on the back of the hand- a curious practice, using skin as writing paper (vellum?) - have something in common with the abrasions and blotches that appear on the surface of the daguerreotype, resembling self mutilation and disfigurement? Occasionally makers would etch their signature or the sitter's name onto the plate directly with an engraving needle. Careless handling, untutored cleaning, and poor storage conditions contribute to all manner of detriment similar to eczema (bursting copper salts?), psoriasis, bruising (blooming?) and other epidermal diseases. These anatomical allusions evoke the paradox of the daguerreotype's annihilation of time, its existence outside of time in a quasi-imaginary continuum. It is perhaps ironic that the static and fixed mirror image of the long dead sitter is rendered as a living entity by an unknown miniature painter, who sought to give the pink of health and vitality to a colourless apparition, a monochrome mini-doppelganger of one that lived through the skilled application and manipulation of pigment to the surface of the plate. Breathing life into chiaroscuro daguerreotypes by using breath to 'fix' the powdered colour. Here we see a fusion of two art forms - photography and painting commingling with promiscuous abandon.
Part Two: That Which Is
As a child I was fascinated by antique mirrors, ruminating on the countless passage of human heads that had admired and investigated their own liquid eyes before the burnished glass - now all waves and particles in the atomic structure of the universe. Given the advantage of an overactive imagination and a propensity for amazing visualisation, I was capable of dreaming up chimerical phantoms by squinting in the half-light and scanning my own indistinct reflection, watching it apparently transform by sympathetic magic and then by narrowing the field of vision and screwing up my eyes - vanish. This technique was perfected by poring over books of fashion plates and old photographs in the local Victorian library where it added to my growing sense of metaphysical dreaming. I was also enthralled by books illustrated with 'psychic' photographs of mediums entertaining paranormal manifestations from their mouths in the form of teleplasmic likenesses of the dead and by psychic transference onto sensitized photographic plates held in the medium's hands: 'thoughtographs'. Many of these strange photographs bare a distinct similarity to the psycho-sexual photomontages of the Surrealists. With these perspectives in mind I attempted to form my own metamorphic likenesses. By grimacing in front of the bathroom mirror it was also possible to discern a likeness in the half light of another persona - that of the dreamed dead captured in old photographs - a fugitive doppelganger. Where as the mirror holds its image only temporarily the daguerreotype entrances us with its astonishing wealth of detail and convincing life likeness ad infinitum.
The daguerreotype too, can be elusive and requires specific examination conditions to reveal its inherent transience. Its sudden transference from negative to positive is a curious interchange that conjures up notions of trapping the so-called apparition between one state of reality and another. Collectors invariably become the people they study in the daguerreotype imbuing images with their own personality - assuming the role of an imaginary host soul, giving utterance to 150 years of silence. The daguerreotype, (mankind's first intervention and encounter with photogenic duplicity) acts as a reflector of the earliest known photographic subjects, tracer of urban ghosts into the ether(?) and a receptor of our prying gaze, our insatiable hunger for truth - be it recycled, unreliable, anecdotal - a completely manufactured history. Believable fiction is made plausible by the triangular relationship between the seer, the seen and the semblance. The potent enigma of anonymity lies in the splendour of the daguerreotype; this is a deeply emotional charge which inspires a yearning to be the person. Such magnetism is metaphorical, timeless and mutable. We can transform the meaning of the image every time we accept its metallic reality. I also believe that the daguerreotype reveals itself slowly, possibly cautiously, over an extended time period, gradually giving us an incremental scope for perusal and limitless perplexion. The image grows on us and permeates our very pores planting little pockets of supposition in place of logical, academic rationale. Collectors are the hapless keepers of ghosts, harbouring lost secrets and unknown realities. They are the curators of their own cabinets of curiosity, the keepers of the loved dead. When we acquire a daguerreotype we obtain the migratory connoisseurship of a relic, a fragment of life that has expired, gone forever, yet remains as a vestige to beguile us, complete with the evaporated moisture of hands that have long since shrivelled and withered to dust. Our sensitive appraisal and analysis of the image is filtered through time and the ongoing metaphysical dialogue we choose to (mutely) entertain with the image. Woven into the spell of the daguerreotype are our own fetishes, obsessions and personal neuroses. It's as if our own identity merges and commingles with that of the unknown sitter in the daguerreotype every time we stare at it face to face. This curious speechless dialogue is one of privilege and transcends the ravages of history. What we are left to ponder are the records of our former selves, our forebears, and the elimination of time that somehow becomes assimilated into the reality of the daguerreotype. This transmigration of souls was graphically symbolized by the Ancient Egyptians in their votive religious art. It is also epitomised in the breathtaking loveliness of the daguerreotype. We effectively invoke the Ka and Ba of Egyptian mystical afterlife belief, taking on the role of soul shifter, transporting the aura of the dead to the realm of the living - the fertile province of the imagination. We adopt the pretty dead person and in turn they occupy our hearts and minds, thus we become a vessel for an expression of life, and we translate their coded whispers through the ciphers of an indistinct reverie. In Jewish cabbalistic folklore the Dybbuk is an elective ancestor, a millennial messenger, ingested by the living and carried within them. Those who have loved and lost will understand the incorporeal power of the daguerreotype implicitly. Collecting daguerreotypes is an ongoing eclectic affirmation of a life lived, as the poet, W. B. Yeats so poignantly writes in A Vision, "to assist the imagination of the dead." The amassing of dead people's likenesses from the earliest photogenic era is in essence a rebirth as it lives on through our interpretation, dialogue and dissemination: the image endures and we give to it our most beautiful fantasy.
Part Three: Eclectic Paraphernalia
I am equally intrigued by the mysterious objects concealed behind daguerreotypes which may have originally formed part of the packaging: illegible notes, inscriptions, formulae, various coloured papers, letters, lockets of hair, playbills, newspaper advertisements, poems etc... These items form a part of the collective social history of the daguerreotype and represent tiny evidences of historical stratum particular to the era of photogenic revolution. In looking at this torn, crumpled, stained and dog eared material we are ostensibly studying the minutiae of the world around the Daguerreotype. It has something in common with collecting litter off the streets yet it is stranger than this, as the paraphernalia belongs to a lost time, a vanished epoch! This so-called paraphernalia is the hidden syntax of the daguerreotype's endless journey through time, a fractured and dislocated message, so feint that we can barely discern the intonation or decipher the handwriting of its intention. Could it be that these appendages form the basis of an unknown language of signs, symbols and codes of conduct, perhaps the lost vernacular of love? Thus we are talking about a form of glossolalia, (speaking in tongues) through the scraps and shreds of time's crumbling collage. This may offer valuable insight and describes in a shattered eulogy, the membrane of association surrounding the daguerreotype's transit from then (1840's) to now (2005). Whilst these components were originally used to encapsulate the daguerreotype's fragile micro-culture, they also come from a matrix of materials (to hand at the time of preservation) contemporary to the image and conveniently available for use by the photographer. There is, in this sense, an ethics of recycling both in terms of the perpetuity of images and the proliferation of paper; that substance which much of our lives are recorded or reproduced upon and absorbed into multitudinous shapes and contexts. The two seem inextricably linked. What then, was the daguerreotype to the people of the 1840's and 50's? During this time frame the daguerreotype served as a singular companion likeness of those living and deceased carried amongst the temporary living (transitory) as icons for reverence, remembrance and reiteration. A picture from life so realistic that affirms this person existed, etc...
A brief experiment in modernity links us with our distant photogenic past. Pointing a digital camera at a subject whilst moving creates a curious sensation of impermanence and mutability not dissimilar to the effects of viewing a landscape through a camera obscura. The viewing screen is something like a pocket mirror in that it holds in motion what is seen in miniature temporarily. When observed from various angles or vantage points the image is similarly bleached out - solarised. It returns fleetingly as a flickering shadowy emergence. I often wonder how the first daguerreotypes of buildings and external views appeared to the pioneering public gaze - as unbelievable snapshots or souvenirs. Vintage daguerreotypes contain a wealth of detail in a seemingly transient paradox and it is possible to liken this early experience of daguerreotypy to the precarious nature of digital photography. There is a parallel micro-universe operating upon the screen in which we may creatively interact, select details and then edit them out. In the daguerreotype reality is transformed by chemicals, optics, scale and belief in the holographic truth of the picture. What is seen is recorded for posterity. Posterity is ongoing time.
Part Four: Two Early (1843) Claudet Daguerreotypes & other superb images....
Two unusual sixth plate portraits of a young man and a woman, taken circa 1843 (date scratched on the back of one case) reveal that these people were probably"significant others" - sweethearts or perhaps a husband and wife. The daguerreotypes have a very primitive feel to them and incorporate Claudet's pioneering use of the painted backdrop in his Adelaide Gallery Studio: an Arcadian Lakeland scene complete with scudding clouds, feathery trees and an imponderable pond. Each image was given a heavy bath of gold chloride and this imbues the images with a strange peaches and cream sepia-like quality - everything is rendered warm and chocolate coloured. The sitters are posed in front of the painting that mimics the green outdoors of the countryside and not the industrial squalor, smoke, stink and steam of the city. The woman appears demure, museful (finger to chin), well fed (moderately porcine as was the fashion for ladies then) and refined, dressed in her coquettish finery. The whiskered man leans on a footstool and looks up attentively guided by Claudet's artistic instructions. One's eye is drawn time and again to that large ring on his finger - a gift from the lady in the other daguerreotype? He has a somewhat bemused expression that is unusual in that it reveals his emerging mirth and spontaneity and does not exemplify the typical dignified (haemorrhoidal) posturing arrogance of the period. Smiling was not normally the prerequisite expression in early English daguerreotypes. Our sitter (aged about 32) appears relaxed and playful, acting up to Claudet's innovations. Such experimental portraits from Claudet's early period are incredibly rare. Perhaps he knew the (unidentified) sitters personally and asked them to assume these unusual positions and guises? The Adelaide Gallery Studio was the first to employ the use of painted backdrops and was also a powerhouse of the latest technological exhibitions, marvels and mechanisms of the age. Did Claudet, as an accomplished artist, paint the backdrop himself? He was swiftly followed by Beard's studio in 1843 with their introduction of trompe l'oeil painted backdrops to lend kudos and high art prestige to a portrait. This duo of daguerreotypes presents us with a well to do young couple who wished (individually) to have their likenesses made. What was the occasion - an engagement? The images exude a rudimentary charm and originality that is totally unlike other period photographs.
Jabez Hogg (1817-99) and 'Keates' (?). Christmas Family Group. Oversize Half Plate. December 1846.
The next image is an oversize half plate attributed to Jabez Hogg (1817-99) (his signature appears etched on the reverse as J. Hogg in a typical florid script), dated Dec(ember) (18)46. This unusual family daguerreotype portrait may well be Hogg's own family relatives taken in his Islington home at Albion Grove (now named Ripplevale Grove). Incredibly, the plate was purchased from an antique shop only a few minutes walk away from Hogg's cottage in the Barnsbury district of Islington, so it had not moved far in its 158 year transit. Hogg's first wife, Mary Ann, died young and if the likeness of the man in the daguerreotype is him, he would be 29 years old when the image was made. The girls wear dresses cut from the same cloth as the young woman in the portrait. Hogg was an early experimental pioneer in the development of the daguerreotype at Richard Beard's studio - although he never actually worked as a daguerreotypist for Beard, he conducted his own experiments and made a series of daguerreotypes all of which are distinctly numbered (this plate is etched No 17). Another name appears scratched onto the back of the plate, Keates - this was the operator or assistant to Hogg during the exposure. No record of him surfaces elsewhere, despite an enormous search through volumes of photographic artists in London during the mid 1840's. What is remarkable about this curious daguerreotype is the informality of the pose, the young man leans on the back of the girl's chairs and stares candidly into the lens of the camera. This was someone familiar and confident with the process either as a maker or sitter. The young ladies are more reserved and each sits according to specific instructions and appears apprehensive of what may come to pass. The daguerreotype epitomises for me the early British Victorian family unit, with the man standing over his female counterparts in an attitude of protective consideration. He invites our curiosity as he is so relaxed and in tune with what is occurring.
A portrait of 'D.A.M.' Scottish Gentleman ¾ plate Daguerreotype by Josiah Rowe, October 1852.
When I first saw this stunning daguerreotype portrait in an ebay auction I was instantly 'hooked'. The powerfully hypnotic gaze of the gentleman is both captivating and intriguing. It's an amazing likeness that exudes a potent life force. Who was this mysterious young man? He would appear to be aged about 36-37 years old and has a dignified mystique about him. Behind the image is a scrap of paper upon which and written in pencil is the following note from the sitter:
" Josiah Rowe Photographer (Underlined)
Accepted as a truthful likeness of myself
October 1852, on the testimony of Emmy Clark
And infant 3 years old "
D.A.M.
I was told that the previous owner's uncle had passed away and left the daguerreotype to her in his will. Subsequent investigation revealed that the portrait was purchased during a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, in the mid 1920's and the plate had come from an antiques shop and had been recorded in a ledger of purchases. Even at this early stage the collector was aware of its magnificence and mastery. There could have been few ardent or informed collectors searching for daguerreotypes in the 1920's, this factor alone is totally unique. I struck up a lively dialogue with the seller and acquired the daguerreotype despite competitive bidding. I felt that it was meant to come into my collection and have found the image loaded with emotional intensity and scintillating complexity since it first arrived on the scene. It continues to perplex and haunt me.
Unknown Maker. A Portrait of three Siblings. 1/6 plate Scottish Daguerreotype circa 1845.
The three children depicted in this daguerreotype form a pyramidal composition or an apex, which I assume refers to their status and respective ages within the family. The eldest boy wears a Glengarry Cap (one can see this cap in several calotypes from the 1840's in Hill and Adamson's portraits of youths) which is traditionally Scottish. This charming and well balanced daguerreotype displays the intimacy between the children and epitomises the borrowing of aesthetic influence from late Neo-classical portraiture and its overlap into daguerreotypy.
One is drawn to daguerreotypes that evoke or suggest a story about their sitters. The search for such powerful images is lengthy and circuitous. More often than not it is rewarding and intensely satisfying. I often wonder in the sleepless small hours why people collect photographs of the long dead. Our fascination with hosting historical fragments or acting as curators in a personal museum of our own contrivance is possibly an impetus that prompts the quest. The scrutiny and acquisition of daguerreotypes is an entirely self motivated preoccupation and addresses our individual need for a semblance of continuity in the very face of extinction. Do we therefore, collect to allay our fears of death and disintegration? Quite probably our compulsion to collect is born from a desire to save the past from the present and the future. It is also a negation of what time (from a 19th century point of view) represents to us: the industrialised and mathematical regulation of human progress. Time being is time now. Time being is also time edited. Lost time can be recovered in dreams, memories and the collective imagination of the collector. The Daguerreotype in all its startling life likeness cheats the concept of oblivion and gives us the assurance of remembrance and transference.
Copyright C. Shaun Caton 2005. All rights reserved.
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About the author |
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Shaun is an internationally known writer, curator and collector of daguerreotypes who has written extensively in journals and magazines throughout the World on daguerreotypes.
His highly original style of writing makes for engaging and informative reading.
All rights for this article and the beautiful images remain with Shaun.
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