On actino-chemical reactions: J.F.W. Herschel’s photographic spectra with botanical matter

This thesis examines the experiments with botanical colours by John F. W. Herschel (1792–1871) between 1840 and 1842, and how photographic objects functioned in these experiments. The experiments became interpreted as an unsuccessful attempt to colour photography. This interpretation was derived from what survived in the archives — Herschel’s anthotypes — and what did not — his botanical spectra. A substantial, albeit fragmented, body of experimental records is held in several archives, indicating a much more complex scope of spectral, chemical, and photographic experimentation. With this thesis, I study the scope, conduct and context of the experiments. I employ the re-creative research method, reconstructing the instrumentation, reperforming the experiments, and creating new photographic objects. Re-creating Herschel’s experiments shows how the new medium of photography disrupted spectral and chemical investigations into light-induced chemical reactions. Photography introduced the possibility of producing stable and representative records, which later became central in science photography. Yet Herschel’s photographic objects, remaining in the research tradition of spectral and chemical investigations, were not treated as records documenting experiments. Instead, they served as experimental spaces in which light-induced chemical reactions could be created, observed and analysed in their transient states. Herschel’s experiments thus point to a function of photographic objects defined not by documenting experiments, but by being active, temporal spaces for experiments. This thesis revises the narrative of Herschel’s failed attempt at colour photography. I reposition them as a study of light and actino-chemical (light-induced chemical) reactions within the history of photography and science. The use of photographic objects as spaces to conduct experiments reaches beyond that of Herschel’s. It presents a new research question for studying nineteenth- and twentieth-century experiments that investigated actino-chemical reactions without leaving concrete photographs.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Lange, Carolin

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/18452d62-e5bf-4b06-994a-6053b474c0a0/download