When you take photos on holiday do you focus on the picturesque landmarks or are you trying to capture a sense of place?
Images of Italy (1480 to 1900) exhibition at the National Library of Scotland explores how visual representations of Italy developed. These range from 15th-century woodcuts to 19th-century photography.
Books, travel guides and diaries from the Library’s collections document the rise in visitors to Italy. You will see how book illustrators and photographers saw Italy, and how their work provided an impression of the country for British and European audiences.
Early book illustrators usually presented a highly idealised, almost mythical, view of the country. They focused on magnificent Roman ruins, imposing Renaissance buildings, and beautiful rural scenes.
The invention of photography in the 19th century provided a new way to record Italy.
Early photographers continued the picturesque tradition of book illustrators. You can explore this in Robert Macpherson‘s photographs of Rome and examples from John Ruskin‘s collection of daguerreotypes (on loan from The Ruskin, Lancaster University).
See recently acquired 1840s calotype negatives, probably by James Calder MacPhail and James Dunlop. These are the earliest surviving photographs of Italy by Scots.
You can also enjoy James Craig Annan‘s 1890s photogravures of Venice and Lombardy. These showed how handheld cameras could record street scenes and everyday life in Italy.
The Consulate General of Italy for Scotland and Northern Irland, the Italian Institute of Culture in Edinburgh, the National Library of Scotland, and the Scottish Arts and Humanities Alliance (SAHA) are delighted to organise a private guided tour of the exhibition and a reception on Tuesday, October 1st, at 17:30, at the National Library of Scotland. See how the combination of fine art prints and striking early photographs built up a memorable portrait of Italy! By invitation only.
The exhibition continues until 2nd November at the National Library of Scotland (free entry).
