Abstract

The photographer Peter Henry Emerson (1856–1936) is known today for the splash he made on the Victorian photographic scene in the 1880s with his bold refusal to follow his fellow art photographers (collectively known as the Pictorialists) in latching the new medium on to the aesthetic conventions of painting. His conventional position within art history is thus as a precursor to the Modernist conception of photography’s medium-specificity. Yet even if Emerson’s work was ahead of its time in its proto-Modernist refusal of painterly conventions, it also has qualities that place it more squarely within late-Victorian discourses. In particular, I argue, Emerson’s ongoing efforts to secure his photographs via copyright law need to be understood as reflective of a distinctly nineteenth-century cultural imaginary. This essay addresses the relationship between Emerson’s aesthetic theory and copyright law by dividing Emerson’s career into two stages, before and after 1891, this being the year in which Emerson abruptly disavowed photography as an artistic medium in his short pamphlet ‘The Death of Naturalistic Photography’. Examining two photography books – Pictures of East Anglian Life (1888) and On English Lagoons (1893) – alongside late-Victorian debates about photographic copyright, I show that Emerson’s earlier belief in photographic copyright’s ability to retain the integrity of an artist’s vision breaks down after 1891. He loses faith in the ‘copyrightability’ of photography in 1891 when he recognizes the mechanical nature – or automaticity – of the camera. That is, Emerson realizes that the photograph is never purely the product of the artist. In sum, this case study shows that by the 1890s, photographic copyright was becoming detached from the notion of creativity and thus could no longer be the guarantee of a photographer’s claim to artistic individuality.

中文翻译：

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摄影和自动化的危险：爱默生（PH Emerson），著作权和艺术家代理

摘要

摄影师彼得·亨利·爱默生（Peter Henry Emerson，1856–1936）今天因其在1880年代在维多利亚时代的摄影界引起轰动而闻名，他大胆地拒绝跟随他的艺术摄影师（统称“画报”），将新媒体锁定在绘画的审美习惯。因此，他在艺术史上的传统地位是现代主义摄影媒介特殊性概念的前身。然而，即使爱默生的作品在原始现代主义拒绝绘画惯例方面领先于时代，它的品质也使它在维多利亚时代后期的论述中显得更加正统。特别是，我认为，爱默生通过版权法保护照片的不断努力需要被理解为反映出一种独特的19世纪文化想象。本文通过将爱默生的职业生涯分为1891年前和之后的两个阶段来论述艾默生的美学理论与版权法之间的关系，在这一年，艾默生突然在其短版小册子《自然摄影的死亡》中拒绝摄影作为一种艺术媒介。 。检查两本摄影书–《东英吉利人寿的照片》（1888年）和《英语泻湖》（1893年）–以及维多利亚时代后期有关摄影版权的争论，我证明了爱默生对摄影版权能够保持艺术家视野完整的能力的较早信念在1891年后破裂。他输了当他认识到相机的机械性质或自动性时，便对1891年摄影的“可复制性”产生了信心。也就是说，艾默生意识到，照片绝非纯粹是艺术家的产品。总而言之，本案例研究表明，到1890年代，摄影版权已脱离创造力的概念，因此不再可以保证摄影师主张艺术个性。