Acting out
type: CreativeWork
about: DefinedTerm
  alternate name: Photography--History--19th century--Exhibitions
about: DefinedTerm
  alternate name: Cabinet photographs--United States--Exhibitions
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/310100607
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/320126550
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/320129411
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/320131298
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/330137783
abstract: "Cabinet cards were America's main format for photographic portraiture through last three decades of the nineteenth century. Standardized at 6 1/2-by-4 1/4-inches, they were just large enough to reveal extensive detail, leading to the incorporation of elaborate poses, backdrops, and props. Inexpensive and sold by the dozen, they transformed getting one's portrait made from a formal event taken up once or twice in a lifetime into a commonplace practice shared with friends. The cards reinforced middle class Americans' sense of family. They allowed people to show off their material achievements and comforts, and the best cards projected an informal immediacy that encouraged viewers feel emotionally connected with those portrayed. The phenomenon even led sitters to act out before the camera. By making photographs an easygoing fact of life, the cards set the root for the snapshot and even today's photo sharing. This first-ever in-depth examination of the cabinet card phenomena, assembled by Dr. John Rohrbach, senior curator of photographs at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, takes the form of a major travelling exhibition and book. The project finds its roots in the work of New York City photography Napoleon Sarony who, starting in the 1860s, made cabinet cards his central tool for marketing the stars of the day. The project reveals how in reaction to the cards' ubiquity, photographers across the United States worked assiduously to set their businesses apart through use of elaborate, often incongruous, backdrops, overlays, and promotional advertising printed on both sides of the cards. It highlights how the cards transformed photography from a formal event into an avenue for personal expression where sitters took full advantage of photography's realism while openly playing with the medium's believability. In short, cabinet cards made photography modern. Essays by Rohrbach, Salvesen, and Pauwels address how cabinet cards reflected and encouraged the wide embrace of …
contributor: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/310166888
contributor: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/3112247
contributor: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/31170418
language: eng
subject of: Statement
  additional type: http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300195187
  text: Introduction : making photography modern / John Rohrbach -- The art of not posing : Napoleon Sarony and the cultivation of pictorial effect in American cabinet cards / Erin Pauwels -- Second-class operators, first-class work : the business of cabinet card photography / Britt Salvesen -- Acting out / John Rohrbach -- Technical remarks on photographic materials used for cabinet card portraiture / Fernanda Valverde.
work example: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/301305829

PropertyValue
property ID: NL-AmRIJ
value: 305829