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WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT (British, 1800-1877) YORK MINSTER FROM LOP LANE

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WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT (British, 1800-1877) YORK MINSTER FROM LOP LANE
WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT (British, 1800-1877) YORK MINSTER FROM LOP LANE "LA485" inscribed in black ink on verso calotype print 6 3/8 x 8 in. (16.2 x 20.3 cm) paper: 7 1/2 x 8 7/8 in. (19.1 x 22.5 cm) July 28, 1845 PROVENANCE Lacock Abbey, Chippenham, England Anthony d'Offay Gallery, LONDON Robert Miller Gallery, NEW YORK Private Collection, CALIFORNIA LITERATURE H.J.P. Arnold, WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT: PIONEER OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND MAN OF SCIENCE, LONDON, 1977, pl. 49 (illustrated) Richard Pare, PHOTOGRAPHY AND ARCHITECTURE: 1839-1939, Montreal, 1982, pl. 3 (illustrated) Larry J. Schaaf, THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ART OF WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT, Princeton, 2000, p. 223 (illustrated) The 1840s were a period of intense activity for William Henry Fox Talbot, as he explored the possibilities of his photographic invention: the calotype process, sometimes referred to as the Talbotype process. As part of this exploration, Talbot traveled to many towns in Britain and abroad to capture the world in two-dimensional form. The photographs he created during these travels are historically significant, as they focus mainly on architecture that has since been destroyed. Here we view York Minster from the corner of Blake and Lop Lanes, a setting that no longer exists. In 1860, Lop Lane was destroyed and the area was rebuilt in order to clear the lines of sight to the cathedral. This photograph allows us to understand the original urban context of the cathedral. Talbot developed his sophisticated sense of composition during this period. The vertical convergence of the buildings in the foreground is a result of tilting his camera upwards, forcing the eye to focus inwards and upwards, and enhancing the compositional importance of the cathedral's skyward climb. On the day this photograph was taken, July 28, 1845, Talbot reported the arrival of Reverend Calvert Richard Jones in a letter to his mother. A photographer himself, Jones also explored the negative/positive paper process that Talbot invented. Not surprisingly, their photographic efforts aroused much interest from passersby. Of course, due to long exposure times, none of these curious spectators were registered into the image. This print has not been cropped, leaving the image borders and paper margins intact.
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