The Open Door

William Henry Fox Talbot

before May 1844 · Salted paper print from paper negative · Photographs

Among the most widely admired of Talbot's compositions, The Open Door is a conscious attempt to create a photographic image in accord with the renewed British taste for Dutch genre painting of the seventeenth century. In his commentary in The Pencil of Nature, where this image appeared as plate 6, Talbot wrote, "We have sufficient authority in the Dutch school of art, for taking as subjects of representation scenes of daily and familiar occurrence. A painter's eye will often be arrested where ordinary people see nothing remarkable." With this concept in mind, Talbot turned away from the historic buildings of Lacock Abbey and focused instead on the old stone doorframe and simple wooden door of the stable and on the humble broom, harness, and lantern as vehicles for an essay on light and shadow, interior and exterior, form and texture.

Artist

William Henry Fox Talbot

Date

before May 1844

Medium

Salted paper print from paper negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Joseph M. Cohen and Robert Rosenkranz Gifts, 2005