Mathew Brady: Photographer of Our Nation: Photographer of Our Nation (Show Me America) by Stuart A P Murray

Author:Stuart A P Murray [Murray, Stuart A P]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781317465010
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

Brady’s studio developed a method for touching up pictures. Some originals, like this image of financier and philanthropist George Peabody, were called “Imperial Prints” and were almost two feet tall.

CHAPTER SIX

The Eve of Civil War

Soul-lit shadows now around me;

They who armies nobly led;

They who make a nation’s glory While they’re living–when they’re dead …

–Caleb Lyon

One specialty of Brady’s was called an imperial photograph. This was an enlarged print, 17 by 20 inches (43 by 51 centimeters) in size. The imperial image was touched up by Brady’s staff artists, whose skillful brush strokes made the portrait look more perfect.

The touch-up artist—usually a woman—smoothed out mussed hair and wrinkled clothes. A touch-up masked facial blemishes or brought out highlights in eyes. In some cases, the imperial was completely painted over by an artist, and the result was a color portrait—an expensive one. Brady could get as much as $750 for an imperial finished in oil paints.

Brady liked painting over photographic portraits, because it brought him back to his youthful training as an artist. Often, a subject was photographed against a blank background such as a screen or wall. Then artists would work on the printed picture. They painted in backgrounds: trees, sky, ornamental gardens, or entire landscapes, just as in a formal portrait painting.

The public was delighted and amazed to view these large images, which hung in Brady’s gallery. Other photographers began to make their own enlargements, and the galleries competed to print the largest pictures. Eventually, Brady printed on banners, 50 feet (15 meters) tall, and hung them outside his gallery. No one could match those enlargements.

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