Abstract

A general objective of this paper is to investigate the original juncture of photography and the graphic arts. By questioning the facile ellipsis that has continually been drawn between the reproductive roles of the artist and the camera, the problematic nature of transferring the production of 'exactly repeatable visual images' from the one to the other will be exposed. Even though such an exchange has long been absorbed into the dialectic of painting versus photography, this paper will demonstrate that the ongoing contestations between expression and illusion were in fact already manifest in the graphic reproduction of the daguerreotype. By unraveling the threads of touch and illusion through historical discourse, I will attempt to place them in relation to photography's seemingly inherent connection to a predetermined 'reality,' and to the various ideological ends to which that reality has been put. And finally, I will suggest a way for understanding this 'ideology' as both inherent, and misunderstood.