Figure 1 – Napoleon Sarony portrait of a young girl, c1870.

I recently acquired the Napoleon Sarony (1821-1896) portrait of Figure 1. There are some very charming features of this picture, the white dress and tights, the bow in the girl’s hair, and her delicate features. The high-button shoes are wonderful as is the large white sash. But best of all is the expression on the child’s face and the way she looks wistfully or angrily away and down. Is that a pout? Perhaps it was a matter of ennui. Was the initial excitement of a day with her mother on bustling Broadway faded by the reality of having to sit for Mr. Sarony. Was there perhaps a promised treat if she behaved “appropriately?” This is the wonder and magic of such photographs. We don’t really know the story, but that doesn’t stop our imagination from filling in the gaps and creating a plausible theory.

Many of these antique albumen prints suffer from their age. There are fixer stains usually brownish yellow dirt and water spots that need to be removed digitally, And this image took a lot of work. Fortunately the majority of the problems were in the borders and on the girl’s dress; so could be removed without causing loss to the image. Old albumens are meant to have a slightly violet or reddish brown tone and this one ran to the magenta. I first removed the stains in color, where I could be guided by the color itself. Then I converted first to black and wife for dodging and burning and second Finally I switched back to RGB and added the tone. I chose a tone that is true to what the artist sought, true to the antiquity of the image, as opposed to what I myself like.

The photograph is pretty easy to date. On the back Sarony Studios is listed as being at 680 Broadway. It opened in 1866 and then moved to 37 Union Square in 1871. So the portrait was taken between 1866 and 1871.

I return to the image and notice the wrinkles in the young lady’s tights. Above all there is a sense of mischief about her. She is very reminiscent of Alice from Alice in Wonderland, or of Alice Liddell herself, and if she swallowed a bitter pill on that particular day then we have to remember what Alice herself taught us,

“If you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison’ it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later.”

  Lewis Carroll

Figure 1 – Dante and Virgil encounter Satan in L’Inferno, 1911. From the Wikipedia and in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

As a continuation of our discussion of the early use of double exposures as “special effects,” I’d like to consider the early full length Italian silent film L’Inferno, 1911,  loosely adapted from Dante Alighieri‘s The Divine Comedy. While some sources credit L’Inferno as being the first full length film that distinction appears to belong to the 1906 Australian film The Story of the Kelly Gang. Perhaps the more revealing distinction for L’Inferno lies in the fact that many still credit it as being the greatest adaption to the big screen of Dante’s magnum opus.  Here is a link to the full 1:10 film.

The film’s depictions of Hell closely followed the classic engravings of Gustave Doré. It was directed by Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, and Giuseppe De Liguoro, and starred Salvatore Papa, Arturo Pirovano, Giuseppe de Liguoro, and Augusto Milla.

The film employed dramatic multiexposure effects to chronicle the journey of the author led by the poet Virgil through the levels of hell, where different classes of sins are appropriately punished. Figure 1 shows Dante and Virgil in a double exposure in the presence of the devil himself, and Figure 2 is a video clip showing tormenting demons.

Many people, today sigh when they see that a film is in black and white, let alone without sound. There is the great press to “destroy” these films by inappropriate colorization. For me they are very special, and I enjoy watching them, always amazed at their ability to tell wonderful stories. If you think about it, what could be a better medium for L’inferno than the cool, dark silent movie theater, with the film in other worldly black and white, and underscored with dramatic music. We truly gasp mesmerized until we are finally permitted to ascend again to see the stars.

Figure 2 – Tormenting demons from L’Inferno 1911. In the prublic in the United States because of its age.

Figure 1 – The first exposure table for daguereotypists 1844, from the George Eastman house.

How many of us have had the experience of sitting in the dentist’s chair while the dentist injects Novacaine into your gum trying desperately not to swallow while the needle is inside your flesh. Those seconds seem like forever. With this background I have looked ever so sympathetically at old daguereotypes imagining the sitters enduring what I assumed where seconds of exposure. Well apparently not, and for me the facts are even more profound. I came across the table of Figure 1 this morning of “the first exposure table.” It is from the George Eastman House and has its origin in tables first published by C. F. Albanus in 1844 – a practical guide for daguereotypists.

Under the absolute best conditions you had to sit absolutely still for six or seven minutes and in the worst, grueling, case scenario as much as an hour! These early sitters were truly courageous.

Figure 1 – William Morrison (1857-1927) portrait of Isabelle Coe as Niobe (circa 1892) from the Wikipedia and in the public domain in the US because of its age.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about Henry Van der Weyde double exposure portrait of Richard Mansfield as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I’d like to share today the contemporary portrait by William McKenzie Morrison (1857-1927) of actress Isabelle Coe as Niobe in the farce by that name. Here too, the double exposure  serves dramatic effect, but one that requires explanation.

Niobe is the mythical  Queen of Thebes who boasts to the goddess Leto about her fourteen beautiful children, seven daughters and seven sons. Leto has only two children, Atemis and Apollo. In her anger Leto has Artemis kill the seven daughters of Niobe and Apollo the seven sons. Niobe flees to  Mount Sipylus, where she herself is turned to stone, but continues to weep unceasingly.

In the farce, a Victorian-era art collector purchases a statue of Niobe, or so he thinks. The statue is, in fact,  the petrified Queen herself, who returns to life after being accidentally jolted with household electricity. Frankenstein again! So here in the photograph Morrison portrays Coe as both Niobe’s statue and reanimated form. Note that the “living form” is just slightly bigger than the “statue form.” As a result even though the “living form” is behind it emanates as a form emergent. That little trick is what I think make the image work.

The story of Niobe explains the quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

Figure 1 – Double exposure by Henry Van der Weyde showing Richard Mansfield simultaneously as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1887-1900). From the Wikipedia, from the US Library of Congress and in the public domain in the US because of its age.

The double exposure was one of the earliest “special effects.” We have discussed how in the nineteen and early twentieth centuries it was used to deceive and create ghost or spirit photographs – cheating the view that “the other-side,” while invisible, connects with this world through forms of physical energy such as light. Then, of course we have early horror films like Le Manoir du Diable (1896) and other uses of these “special effects to entertain and enhance.

At about the same time, in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson published his masterpiece novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The story involves the eminent Dr. Henry Jekyll, who invents and drinks a serum that turns him into the evil and murderous Mr. Edward Hyde. The themes are complex, as they deal with the fundamental questions of human personality, the thin line between the classes, and of multiple personalities. Like Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” there is also the question of science and its growing ability to manipulate humanity.,

The actor Richard Mansfield (1857-1907) upon readings Stevenson’s novella immediately saw the intriguing opportunity of performing a dramatic dual role. He secured rights to adapt the book into a drama in the US and England and commissioned its writing. The play debuted in Boston in May 1887 and then moved on the Broadway. It was critically acclaimed, and Mansfield was invited to bring it to London. It opened there in August 1888, just before the first Jack the Ripper murders. This actually led to Mansfield being suspected of the crimes. Mansfield continued to play the dual role until shortly before his death in 1907.

So we have Figure 1 by photographer Henry Van der Weyde (1838-1924), which uses the double exposure to vividly capture Mansfield’s signature dual role. It is a masterful use of the double exposure, designed to take the still image to a new level; one that captures transition in time.

Today the double exposure feature of modern design and image processing programs is complex. I am speaking about the ability to fade edges, to send one of the exposures forward or back, the ability to control the relative transparencies of the two exposures. In the analog days the double exposure represented a kind of paradox. Returning to Alexander Pope and his “Rape of the Lock,” we are told that spirits are nebulous with something less than the solidity of the tangible human form.