2-969-949 - /Heritage Images

"The Monk" - from a photograph by Mr. Lake Price - from the Exhibition of the Photographic Society, 1856. '...photography has taken an immense stride in the direction in which it's future must find most room for development, namely - the artistic...we recognise a desire on the part of the artist not only to make photography a valuable auxiliary to art, but to raise it to the rank of a fine art itself...Photography will be found a most valuable auxiliary to painting; but rival it can never be...If among the arts any one has cause to view with apprehension the progress photography is making, it is the art of engraving; but the rivalry, even in this field, must necessarily be exceedingly limited. Engraving is...the copying of pictures...it is never original. Photography goes direct to Nature, of which it gives us a mirror-like transcript, and in this respect possesses an immeasurable superiority over engraving...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.