A Quiet Day in the Mortar Battery

1855·Salted paper print, from the album "Photographic Pictures of the Seat of War in the Crimea" (1856)·Image/paper: 24 × 34.6 cm (9 1/2 × 13 5/8 in.); Mount: 41.7 × 53 cm (16 7/16 × 20 7/8 in.)

<p>Socially well connected and prominent in photographic circles, Roger Fenton was commissioned to document the British military during the Crimean War. He spent March through June 1855 with the troops, producing 350 wet-plate glass negatives in his horse-drawn darkroom; they were later shown in exhibitions and published in portfolios for purchase. Because of technical limitations and his presumed upper-end clientele, these earliest images of war do not depict death and battle, but rather a more civilized—even languid, as seen here—view of the conflict. Hugh Edwards maintained that practicing photographers and the public needed to learn from past masters, and he acquired two albums of Fenton’s Crimean photographs.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1855
Medium: Salted paper print, from the album "Photographic Pictures of the Seat of War in the Crimea" (1856)
Dimensions: Image/paper: 24 × 34.6 cm (9 1/2 × 13 5/8 in.); Mount: 41.7 × 53 cm (16 7/16 × 20 7/8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Roger Fenton

Artist

Roger Fenton

Photography

Roger Fenton was a British photographer and painter who pioneered documentary photography in the mid-nineteenth century. He is best known for his extensive photographic campaign during the Crimean War, 1855, which produced some of the earliest sustained visual records of military conflict. Working primarily in collodion process, Fenton also photographed landscapes, still lifes, and architectural subjects with meticulous composition and tonal control. His work established photography as a legitimate medium for historical documentation and artistic practice.

Rochdale, UK

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