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Given its subject matter, it's no surprise that this massive volume is more than a little spooky?and this despite its eschewing cheap sensationalism in favor of a sober, art historical tack. - PW
Yale University Press
October 2005
288 pages
ISBN: 0300111363
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction | Paranormal
In the early days of photography, many believed and hoped
that the camera would prove more efficient than the human
eye in capturing the unseen. Spiritualists and animists of
the nineteenth century seized on the new technology as a
method of substantiating the existence of supernatural
beings and happenings. This fascinating book assembles more
than 250 photographic images from the Victorian era to the
1960s, each purporting to document an occult phenomenon:
levitations, apparitions, transfigurations, ectoplasms,
spectres, ghosts, and auras. Drawn from the archives of
European and American occult societies and private and
public collections, the photographs in many cases have
never before been published. The Perfect Medium studies these rare and remarkable
photographs through cultural, historical, and artistic
lenses. More than mere curiosities, the images on film are
important records of the cultural forces and technical
methods that brought about their production. They document
in unexpected ways a period when developing photographic
technology merged with a popular obsession with the occult
to create a new genre of haunting experimental photographs.
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