The new virtual life of early analogue photography: digitising Oxford University’s magic lantern slide collection.

History of Art at Oxford University

The History of Art Department’s Visual Resources Centre makes its archive of glass slide photography available in an online database.

Dina Akhmadeeva

Figure 1
Anonymous Photographer
View of Constantinople
The Department of the History of Art, Oxford

There exist strong ties between the discipline of art history and the medium of photography, ties which were forged in the mid-19^th century with photography’s development, and which still exist today. In 1947 France’s then-culture minister André Malraux described art history as ‘the history of that which can be photographed’, while more recently art historian Donald Preziosi remarked that, “art history as we know it today is the child of photography”. In lectures, books, classes or articles, art historians have come to rely on photographic reproductions of artworks – whether painting, architecture, design or sculpture – as essential components to the way the discipline functions.

The History of Art Department’s Visual…

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