The Acropolis in Focus: Stillman’s Pioneering Photographs of 1870

William J. Stillman was among the archetypal to photograph this awesome of Western civilization. Public Domain

William J. Stillman an American journalist, diplomat, author, historian, and lensman captured the magic of the Acropolis successful 1870 successful a bid of c prints.

He was among the archetypal to photograph this awesome of Western civilization.

Relatively chartless successful Greece, Stillman was a large Philhellene who served arsenic the United States ambassador successful Crete during the Cretan insurrections of the 19th Century and aboriginal joined a Greek creator successful London.

The Acropolis was photographed by William J. Stillman successful 1870. Public Domain

During his tenure successful Crete, helium was an avowed champion of the Christians connected the land and of Cretan independence. Consequently, helium was regarded with hostility some by the Muslim colonisation and by the Turkish authorities.

William J. Stillman captures the Acropolis

In September 1868 helium resigned and went to Athens wherever helium tried to picture his emotion of the state and its past civilization successful print.

The Caryatids astatine the Acropolis were photographed by William J. Stillman successful 1870. Public Domain

The Acropolis and the Parthenon were the perfect settings for his photography. Critics person commented that Stillman’s medium of views of the Athenian Acropolis show an creator sensibility and a genius of the highest order.

‘The Acropolis of Athens: Illustrated Picturesquely and Architecturally successful Photography successful 1870’.

The Propylaia astatine Acropolis. Public Domain

The volume, bound successful reddish leather and measuring 530 by 340 mm, contained 25 c prints connected paper, with elemental captions opposite.

Imposing successful size and striking successful benignant and execution, Stillman’s publication has since been recognized arsenic among the much important photographic publications of its period.

The publication is claimed arsenic a ‘precursor of the twentieth-century modernist photobook’, by virtuousness of the aesthetic properties of the photographs themselves, but besides due to the fact that of the telling effect to which image, substance and blank abstraction are combined

Stillman was not the archetypal to seizure the Acropolis. In the distant twelvemonth of 1842, French lensman and draughtsman Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey took the first-ever photograph of the ”Holy Rock.”

Marie Spartali. Public Domain

Stillman near Greece for London wherever successful 1871 helium joined creator Marie Spartali, a girl of the Greek consul-general Michael Spartali, though without his permission.

Spartali was a Pre-Raphaelite painter, and arguably the top pistillate creator of that movement. During a sixty-year career, she produced implicit 1 100 works, contributing regularly to exhibitions successful Great Britain and the United States.

Stillman’s emotion for Greece led him backmost to Athens wherever helium served arsenic The Times’ analogous successful 1877-1883.

After his retirement, helium lived successful Surrey, England, wherever helium died connected July 6, 1901.

Sources:

MacManus, D., & Campbell, H. (2015). ‘Illustrated Picturesquely and Architecturally successful Photography’: William J. Stillman and the Acropolis successful Word and Image. Architectural Histories, 3(1), Art. 22. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/ah.cw

Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library