User:Aitantv/John Tagg (1988) The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories

A Democracy of the Image: Photographic Portraiture and Commodity Production

• "In this transitional period, the emerging middle-class market for portraits had not yet spurred the development of novel artistic modes but, rather, saw the adoption of artistic conceptions and forms of representation from the displaced nobility - modes which were modified according to new needs. What was demanded of portraits was, on the one hand, that they incorporated the signifiers of aristocratic portraiture and, on the other hand, that they be produced at a price within the resources of the middle-class patrons. The fashionable miniature became one of the first portrait forms to be,adapted to the needs of a new clientele in this way." (36)
• "The ideological conception of the photograph as a direct and 'natural' cast of reality was present from the very beginning and, almost immediately, its appeal was exploited in portraiture." (41)
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