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Representation of the engineer : shifting definitions 1840-64

University of British Columbia

Between the perfection of the Daguerreotype and the Talbotype processes in 1840 and the International Exhibition of 1862, engineers commissioned portraits in these new and more traditional mediums. These portraits and depictions of engineering represent the uncertain , social position engineers occupied and the conflictual attitudes towards their work. To date, there remain relatively few portraits, despite the fact that a number of engineers became millionaires. That probably derives from the difficulty of depicting this new professional group within existing artisitic conventions. Consequently some of the most striking visages of individual engineers are in the early versions of the photographic medium suggesting the engineer's implementation of technology and industrial method to impose a new reality, or radically changed industrial environment, on contemporary society. Similarly, the few academic pictures of engineering works betray difficulties with the choice of appropriate pictorial typology and iconography. The majority of such representations derive from picturesque topographical traditions reflecting the prepondrance of touristic promotional books aimed at the rising middle class, (the members of which supported such manifestations of technical and social progress). Popular admiration and anxiety about the physical changes effected through engineering were more directly represented in the new illustrated journals where iconographic innovation was feasible.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-06-15

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/9203

Fine Arts

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace