the artist, even in photography, must go beyond discovery and the knowledge of facts. He must create and invent truths, and produce new developments of facts.
-Albert Sands Southworth
the photograph was seen as an automatic recording device that required no interpretation.
the tension between visual intensity taken as truth and the larger, societal significance of a subject.
In public discussions and literature, the capacity of the photograph to seem whole and complete, while omitting relevant truths, was rarely addressed directly.
As belief in the objectivity of photography took hold, the medium was belittled as a potential art form.
To complete the picture, he carefully retouched the horizon line where the two negatives met.
combination printing challenged the notion of photography as an unadulterated transcription of optical reality.
-Mary Warner Marien, Photography: A Cultural History, 2nd ed.
Great and true Art is republican, and is for all men, needing no education to appreciate it - no more than we need education when we fall in love.
-"Fine Arts: New Publications" The Athenaeum, 1549 (July 4, 1857)
