Emma Rüther:
Die Erfindung der Fotografie

Images that are described in scientific texts - that is the norm in art history. What is more unusual and more rare is when academic texts about images become images themselves.

The Projektbüro des DFI e.V. is delighted to present Die Erfindung der Fotografie, Emma Rüther's graduation project at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, as an exhibition. On a total of four framed text images measuring 85 × 115 cm, the entire work is easy to read and invites you to take a closer look. Viewed from a greater distance, the text images in turn appear as pure pictorial compositions that manage without superfluous aesthetic elements - the scientific text is not further illustrated or graphically designed above basic necessity.

In her academic study based on three years of research, Emma Rüther anchors the emergence of photography in new forms of landscape painting that emerged in the late 18th century. Rüther, who studied in the class of Christopher Williams, examined the work of twenty inventors from seven countries who, in parallel and unbeknownst to each other, laid the foundations for the emergence of photography around the year 1800.

The use of oil paint to create colorful sketches in the great outdoors, for example, was used by painters from 1780 onwards to depict light situations and weather phenomena more accurately than before. Landscape painting became more plausible and relied less on the combination of traditional formulas. The artists' view of the landscape changed even before the technique of reproducing it faithfully was invented. In her second text picture, Rüther then turns to the new medium of photography, which preserves the things of the world from decay and provides new insights into sequences of movement and ageing processes. Photography suggests both neutrality of representation and subjectivity of the gaze.

“The invention of photography in 1839 revolutionized human perception,” concludes Emma Rüther. However, the chemical prerequisites were already known much earlier. In 1717, the German scientist Johann Heinrich Schulze published the fact that silver salts react to the effects of light with a dark coloration. “In order to answer the question 'why was photography invented in 1839? The correct question should be: 'why was photography only invented in 1839?”

Kindly supported by:
Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf