It begins with photography in portraiture, proceeding to documentary and then aesthetic treatments.
Yet this is not an account merely of a genre, but of the way portraiture developed within the framework of religious and dynastic expectations.
Their portraitures represented for decades the social, economic, gender, and political ideals of the emerging bourgeoisie, the petite bourgeoisie, and the culture they would forge.
The chapters on portraiture are by far the most effective.
Before photography a basic requirement of portraiture was an accurate resemblance to the sitter, yet this apparent objectivity was frequently manipulated into different political agendas.
This was where the connection with portraiture was formed.
His observations on the rapidity of flashes could also be adapted to portraiture.
The fad for equestrian portraiture was launched in the early 1860s.
