The Museum of Modern Art San Francisco, presents photos taken by well-known scholars of XIX century. Due to the general public for the first time to learn, as are close to the Moon and snowflakes

The Museum of Modern Art San Francisco (SF MOMA) an exhibition of scientific photographs of 1840's - 1900-ies. It can be seen first in the history of x-rays, with the daguerreotype image of the moon and even pictures of ghosts.

We now know how Earth looks from space, which resemble bacteria and viruses, and that is with us under the skin. For us, x-rays, photographs of micro-organisms and distant space objects have become somewhat commonplace, and we can not imagine that people felt when they first have to look at what you can not see the naked eye. The first-ever photographs were made by Joseph Nicéphore Nepsom (Joseph Nicéphore Niepce) in 1820-ies, a well-known photo has received in the late 1830's, when they were invented дагерротипия and kalotipiya. A new method of production of images at once taken by the scientists, who with the help of photographs could show the world his discovery.

Now every schoolchild knows that putting a tiny bugs under the microscope, one can behold a terrible hairy and horned behemoth. But for the vast majority of people the middle of XIX century it was a real revelation. The microscope was invented in the XVII Century, but widely used began in 1830-ies. Consider plants and insects under the microscope, it was a popular entertainment of the wealthy people, but the people afford such expensive toys can not. Of course, images of objects under the microscope appeared in magazines and photographs to the invention - for the benefit of science employed a lot of artists. Moreover, scientists have used a camera, had to fight with those who preferred zarisovyvat its opening, but the main argument of the artists was that, by drawing an object under a microscope, they portrayed it solely, but on the pictures will inevitably appear that «does not apply to the case »- dust and so forth. But the picture has the top, because its credibility was, of course, more.

The exhibition at SF MOMA presents early images of microorganisms, different plants, small insects, and snowflakes. First photos of snowflakes made Elvin Wilson Bentley (Wilson Alwyn Bentley). At a young age, he considered the «ice flowers» with the same microscope, and then decided pridelat to your camera. For his entire life Bentley made more than five thousand photographs snowflakes, wrote about the book and became the author of the theory according to which no snowflake is not like another.

in the same room as the images of objects under a microscope, presented stereofotografii. They are very unusual: leaf, which glue the two similar but not identical images. Proponents of this type of photography argued that once we look at the world through the eyes of the two, the camera must also be two «eye». Using a special stereoscope can be obtained from volumetric images. In 1850-ies stereoscopy was very popular - almost every middle-class living room, it was necessary equipment.

Looking at the beautiful photographs of the finest magic organisms remember the great picture abstraktsionistov XX Century - Vasily Vasily Kandinsky , Joan Miro (Joan Miró), and others. Just seems true statement that if there were no photographs, there would be no art and modernism - because they are inextricably linked. Photo and avant-garde art took upon itself the task to show people what is not visible eye. On the pictures you can see a variety of physical phenomena, and the great modernists were trying to show motion pictures on his human soul.

In the next room you can see the first-ever photographs of celestial bodies. Daguerreotype depicting the moon, made in the middle of the XIX century, incredibly beautiful, but the scientists in their research, they have not helped: the photographs could not make out details, visible through a telescope. But with the invention of dry gelatin plates in the 1870-ies in astronomy, this revolution has occurred. Photos Moon became a truly popular, they printed in magazines and exhibited at trade shows. At SF MOMA, you can also see the first photographs of Milky Way and the solar eclipse.

Using the photos became much easier for scientists to communicate with each other and the world about their discoveries. On the pictures the first time people could see the invisible forces of nature, such as electricity. Amateur scientist Etienne-Leopold Truvelo (Etienne-Léopold Trouvelot ) makes the image electrical discharges. Wonderful shape, reminiscent of seaweed, there are only the pictures: the author has photographed an electrical current to fotonegative and saw only the spark, the same process of these forms has remained hidden for him. In those years, many feared the use of electricity: newspapers and magazines are replete terrible cartoons, in which people killed shocks. Photos Truvelo helped to convince the audience that electricity should not be afraid of it, like all forces of nature, naturally and beautifully. Generally Truvelo glorified through their drawings with images of celestial bodies, and that brought in the United States moths pests - gypsy moth, which still suffer from American forests.

William Jennings (William Jennings), as well as Truvelo, can be called not only to scientists, but also an artist. He was famous for his pictures of lightning. Jennings has shown that diverse forms of lightning, but none of them would like zigzag.

One can say that Jennings and some other scholars, photographers challenged painters. It turned out that many artists-«realistic» draw world wrong! For centuries painters struggled over the problem of image motion. They have helped in this well-known photographers Edverd Maybridzh (Eadweard Muybridge) and Etienne-Jules Mare (Etienne-Jules Marey). Earlier in his career Maybridzh photographed mostly landscapes, but in 1872, former Governor of California Liland Stanford (Leland Stanford), invited him to participate in one interesting experiment. Stanford asked: Is it true that during the horse races at some point, separates from the ground all of its four legs and for a moment «hang» in the air? .. Maybridzh invented the following: along the track, which was to run the horse, he found 12 small cabins with a camera. So were pictures of horses running, which has been shown that the animal is actually at some point outstrips the earth ... and with all his four feet under the belly. Seeing pictures Maybridzha, the famous French artist Jean-Louis-Ernest Meyssone (Jean-Louis-Ernest Maissonnier) burst into tears - it turned out that all his life he wrote of horses running correctly.

Maybridzh a lot of photographic series, each of which is devoted to the movement of any person or animal. However, not all of his images can be called true. The photographer was aesthetes, and to make his creations look more impressive, he ... to swap some of the images in their series, thus changing the sequence of movements. Unlike Maybridzha, Frenchman Etienne-Jules Mare tried to have his pictures were authentic as possible. For the «chronophotography» Mare not use multiple static cameras and one mobile device. Studies of the scientist played a huge role in the development of cinema.

Impact, which works Maybridzha and Mare had on the artist-avant-garde early twentieth century, it is difficult to overestimate. Remember the famous picture of Marcel Duchamp (Marcel Duchamp) «Nude, down the stairs»: it is not there would not «stop-frame» Etienne-Jules Mare. The same can be said about the paintings (and sculptures!) Italian Futurists. Impetus to the development of the artistic avant-garde has the idea of an entire invisible universe, which determines everything that we see and feel: a substance composed of invisible particles, the electric light creates invisible currents, the movement of rights can be decomposed into invisible fragments. Therefore, in addition to the visible world can be and still represent the invisible, which it is.

Creation of photographers, depicting the movement have a special aesthetic, which is also not gone unnoticed painters: for example, Francis Bacon (Francis Bacon) in the creation of some works inspired by images Edverda Maybridzha.

Of course, at the exhibition on display at SF MOMA and the first x-rays. The first one was made in 1895 a physicist named Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen). When he first presented in public hands of his wife's photograph, which was visible only bones and a ring, many were horrified. But soon, people familiar with the scientific discovery of X-rays and even came into vogue. Have your picture was in the same prestigious as its own portrait by the famous photographer. The exhibition includes x-rays of hands ... the last Russian emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

Now it seems absurd, but in the XIX century, some believed that if you can «educate» with the help of X-ray machine and the human body to the camera to capture the invisible eye microorganisms, then why did not photograph the human aura, or ghosts? .. For example, Darzhe Louis (Louis Darget) believed that it is possible to photograph the human mind. He joined a special unit (not an x-ray) to the head man, playing the piano works of Beethoven. The pictures got some strange slime, which, according to a scientist, you can see a person of great composer.

Proponents of spiritualism felt that with the help of new technologies will be able to prove their theory, as do scientists. And some, like William H. Mamleru (William H. Mumler), managed to make photos of ghosts good business. Once, making your photo, Mamler accidentally used the plate, which was already someone else's picture in the picture ... so there is some shadowy figure. Mamler thought «ghost», is depicted in photographs - his cousin, who died twelve years earlier, but soon realized what's wrong. Mamler decided to professionally deal «photograph spirits» and not progadal: Customers wishing to have their pictures on the background of ghosts, the shaft pushed in his studio. Photographer exposed when the «ghost» to learn of his photographs have been living and live the people.

The last room at the exhibition devoted to works by contemporary artists who are inspired scientific photography. For example, Edzava Kota (Kota Ezawa) says the painting, which depicts x-rays of hands. Brothers Doug and Mike Starn (Doug & Mike Starn) used in their works pictures of insects and snowflakes taken with a microscope. In addition, in the hall you can see the works of the famous post-war photographer Edgertona Harold Eugene (Harold Eugene Edgerton). He made spectacular shots of objects in motion, inspired by the works Edverda Maybridzha and Etienne-Jules Mare.

Material prepared Yulia Maksimova

Sources: sfmoma.com , artinvestment.ru