- Dimensions:
- 200 × 120 × 10 mm
- 160 pages
- Format:
- Paperback
- ISBN:
- 9781780235257
- Illustrations:
- 31 illustrations
- Published:
- 01 Sep 2015
- £14.95
- Buy Now
On Photography
Esther Leslie, Walter Benjamin
Translated by Esther Leslie
Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘A Short History of Photography’ (1931) made bold statements about photographic pioneers such as David Octavius Hill and Nicéphore Niépce, and the social and historical context of their work. This first selection of Benjamin’s writings on photography includes a new translation of this influential essay as well as a range of Benjamin’s other writings, both published and unpublished, some of which are translated into English for the first time here.
Esther Leslie’s introduction covers Benjamin’s writing on early photographic methods and aesthetics; his analysis of the commercial studio photography of the ‘decadent’ bourgeoisie; the use of photographs in scientific research; and other innovative photographic methods such as the ‘auraless’ images of Eugène Atget and the ‘new visions’ of August Sander and Germaine Krull. Leslie discusses Benjamin’s take on the evolution of photography into a modern form, the universal fascination with the seemingly simple postcard – an interest dating back to Benjamin’s own childhood – as well as the special relationship he found between Paris and the photographic method.
As a notable philosopher, critic and uniquely imaginative thinker, Benjamin’s essays offer a fascinating critique of early photography. With a substantial introduction, contextualizing prefaces and comprehensive glossaries, Esther Leslie guides the reader through Walter Benjamin’s multifaceted engagement with the significance of photography.
Esther Leslie is Professor of Political Aesthetics in the School of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. She is the author of Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism (2000), Hollywood Flatlands: Critical Theory, Animation and the Avant-garde (2002) Synthetic Worlds: Nature, Art and the Chemical Industry (Reaktion, 2005), and the editor and translator of On Photography by Walter Benjamin (Reaktion, 2015).
Esther Leslie is Professor of Political Aesthetics in the School of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. She is the author of Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism (2000), Hollywood Flatlands: Critical Theory, Animation and the Avant-garde (2002) Synthetic Worlds: Nature, Art and the Chemical Industry (Reaktion, 2005), and the editor and translator of On Photography by Walter Benjamin (Reaktion, 2015).
Introduction: Walter Benjamin and the Birth of Photography
Esther Leslie
Small History of Photography (1931)
Nothing Wrong with the Illustrated Press! (1925)
Letter to Grete Cohn (16 October 1927)
New Things about Flowers (1928)
Paris, the City in the Mirror: Declarations of Love by Poets and Artists to the ‘Capital of the World’ (1929)
The Wall (c. 1932-4)
Review of Gisèle Freund’s La Photographie en France au dix-neuvième siècle. Essai de sociologie et d’esthétique (1938)
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements