| The 1375th Meeting of the Connecticut Academy
of Arts and Sciences was held on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 at
5.30 p.m. at the Exley Science Center at Wesleyan University.
The President, Ernest Kohorn welcomed some 30 members and their
guests. He described the Academy for those who were unfamiliar
with it and invited them to join the august society. He introduced
the Vice President for Wesleyan, Peter Frenzel, and thanked him
for hosting the occasion. Professor Frenzel then introduced the speaker for the evening, Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, the Jane Seney Professor of Classics at Wesleyan University. The title of the talk was "Nineteenth Century Photographers, Scholars and Travelers in Classic Lands." Professor Szegedy-Maszak said that in the 19th Century there was a profusion of archeological travel books entitled "Rambles," "Sketches" or "Notes." These were mainly for the gentry "to ease their labor on their travels." The guidebooks were to turn an idle holiday into a serious mission although their stated purpose was enjoyment and not instruction. However, Dr.Szegedy-Maszak showed photographs in which the artists directed the viewer's attention to what they, the photographer, considered important. For example, in a picture of the Sphinx and the Pyramids in Egypt, the photographer had placed the subjects in such a way as to make the Sphinx appear much larger than the Pyramids. Figures, in other pictures, were placed against the monuments to emphasize their staggering size and in others, the hieroglyphics on monuments were highlighted. With time, European travelers became increasingly peripatetic. The construction of the itinerary was designed to leave the traveler with a feeling that their trip was a thorough one. The locus then turned to Athens where the classical traditions were preserved the best. Photography was the dominant form of visual representation at the time and photographs of some of the monuments were like beacons shining across continents. It was interesting that there was a drive for pure Hellenism and Dr. Szegedy-Maszak showed photographs in which both pre and post classical structures were simply left out. Stillman's photographs emphasized visually what everyone already knew, that there were no straight lines in the Parthenon. His photographs revealed both ancient and modern history because the recent graphiti on the statues were names of heroes who had fought for freedom. Stillman was independent and creative and traveled to Rome as well as Greece and in his work Italians were depicted as childlike and sensual. At this time, there were an increasing number of middle class tourists and travel was no longer limited to the gentry. MacPherson, another photographer who practiced in 1851, showed the beautiful carvings inside arches such as the Arch of Titus. Dr. Szegedy-Maszak concluded by saying that eventually travel and archeology went separate ways. Archeological photography became more detailed and travel focused on tourism. The latter was illustrated by graphic photographs of huge crowds around classical sites in contrast to the delicate photographs with few discreet figures that we had seen earlier. |