0 comment Wednesday, April 9, 2014 | admin
Cliché Verre is a traditional photography technique, where an artist usually draws upon a transparent plate (usually glass) and then exposes the result on to photographic paper.
The process of Cliché Verre straddles the boundary between photography and printmaking.
One of the most famous Cliché Verre practitioners is Camille Corot, and this is one of her prints from 1854 "Le Songeur". source.
This process has decreased in popularity since the 19th century, but it is great to see that contemporary artists are still using this technique.
Courtney Johnson has re-invented this technique for the 21st century; the artist paints on to glass, scans in the glass plate as a negative, and then prints the final piece as a photographic image.
In context, the work describes a transition of time. As time passes landscapes change, country-scapes become city-scapes. Land is bought and built upon. The re-working of the traditional Cliché Verre technique using technological advancement just serves to highlight the passage of time.
Photography was once described as the "handmaiden of science" and was once disregarded as a valid art form, due to its technicalities. The advent of the Industrial Revolution was seen as "soulless", so art-forms born out of new scientific discoveries were dismissed.
Thankfully, photography is now widely accepted as an art form, but it does prove that the history of art, science and photography is a long and complicated one.
Labels: Art, Cameraless Photography, Camille Corot, Cityscapes, Clicha Verre, Courtney Johnson, Glass Cities, Painting, Photography, Science