Textual Inhibitions: Photographic Criticism in Late Victorian Britain

Abstract

With the rise of the art photography movement in Britain in the later nineteenth century came the need for a written discourse that would help promote the artistic merits of the medium. This article examines the development of this discourse by analysing early examples of photographic criticism, focusing on a serial publication entitled Sun Artists. Published in London between 1889 and 1891, each issue of Sun Artists contained photogravures of the work of a prominent photographer and an accompanying essay. An analysis of these texts sheds light on the challenges these essayists faced in their attempts to develop a critical framework for art photography, including grappling with the relationship between image and text, photographer and critic. This article explores the uncertainties manifest in Sun Artists about the role of written criticism in the art photography movement of the time.