Hill, David Octavius  1802-1870, biography English

In 1843, only four years after the solemn proclamation I in France of the invention or photography-which

was still in the primitive stage of the daguerreotype -the painter David Octavius Hill succeeded in obtaining photographs of a beauty which, in many respects, has never since been surpassed. 

Hill was born in Perth, Scotland, in 1802, the son of a bookseller. He died in Edinburgh in 1870. Almost all his life was spent in calm of this fine city. He was a painter of little talent, although highly esteemed by his compatriots. His work is composed principally of romantic landscapes in the taste of the period. Once only, and it was a lucky chance, did he undertake a task of exceptional magnitude. 

In May 1843, Hill took part in the foundation of the Free Church of Scotland. The schism brought mare than two hundred churchmen to Tanfield Hall, in Edinburgh, to proclaim that they were withdrawing from the Presbyterian Church and founding an independent community. Hill decided to preserve this first synod for all time; as he was unfortunately weak in portraiture, ho hit upon the idea of employing photography to take down his picture. 

At this period, the photographic process known in England was the kalotype, which was invented by the savant Fox Talbot at about the same time as the daguerreotype. During a trop to Italy, Fox Talbot had utilized the camera obscura as an aid in sketching landscapes, and this had resulted in researches and later the discovery of a process of making negatives on paper rendered trans parent with wax. These negatives had the advantage of enabling a number of prints to be made, an advantage which the daguerreotype did not yet have. 

This is the process that Hill used. His camera was a model similar to that constructed by Daguerre; his lens was so slow that the models were obliged to pose from three to six minutes in bright sunlight. It may be noted in passing that Hill always remained faithful to his firs lens in spite of later perfections; it probably seemed to him that the soft effects obtained he with it were more artistic. 

He devoted himself indefatigably to photography during the years following 1843. His portraits are admirable not only through the artistic feeling they reveal but also through the ardent application of his models-an application which never gives the impression of something artificial, but of intense naturalness, as if each model, hold in a kind of religious tension, were seeking to give the best of himself. 

All this business ended in a gigantic painting of a least five square yards, in which are jammed nearly two hundred persons. The artistic: value of the result is more than questionable! 

This painting, which kept him busy for a score o years, is now forgotten, while the photographs which served him as sketches will remain the most stirring document of photography's early days. GISÈLE FREUND

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