Lantern slide of a graphic reproduction of Titian’s La Bella (1536), published by Bruno Meyer, ca. 1885, 8.5 × 10.0 × 0.2 cm. KIT Archives 28002/872.
In 1874, art scholar Bruno Ludwig Julius Boguslaus Meyer (1840–1917) was appointed professor of art history, which subject had been established at Karlsruhe Polytechnical College in 1868. Originally from Berlin, Meyer had a longstanding interest in photography and quickly recognized the advantages of the new technology called sciopticon, an early predecessor of the slide projector. This innovation allowed images to be shown to the whole audience simultaneously during lectures, eliminating delays caused by passing around graphic and photographic reproductions. Among elite circles of art historians, however, such advances met with disapproval. Upon his appointment to Karlsruhe, Meyer promoted his idea and began to build up a collection of photographic images from his own resources. By 1880, the Polytechnical College enabled him to set up a lecture hall equipped with a projector and all the necessary apparatus. In 1883, Meyer responded to the demand for art slides by establishing his own publishing house. However, an audit revealed that Meyer was financially profiting from this venture, which he denied, leading to a dispute between Meyer and his employer. In 1884, Meyer requested to be released from the Baden civil service. He returned to Berlin, where he successfully advocated for the modernization of copyright law for “products of photographic technology” at the turn of the century. Just a few years later, lantern slide projections had become an integral part of art history classes. The resulting slide libraries of art history institutes continue to be a central component of the teaching apparatus. The image collections from these lantern slide libraries are being digitized since the 2010s and made available to students and researchers through online databases. In many instances, the term “Diathek” (slide archive) is still retained. as
In late 1880, Bruno Meyer began using a sciopticon to illustrate lectures at Karlsruhe Polytechnical College, thus introducing art-historical photographic lectures into academic teaching. In 1883, he published a catalog of glass slides — a directory of 4,000 glass photograms for art history instruction. Considering the state of photography at the time, and the challenges of photographic slide projection, in particular, it was no small feat to utilize it. Early photography struggled with orthochromatic color reproduction, making it difficult to reproduce paintings. Additionally, the photomechanical reproduction of photographic originals was complicated. For projection purposes, slides also required high lightfastness and contrast. Meyer, who was busy all at once as full professor, photographer, and image publisher during this project, specialized in the intricate process of carbon printing, resulting in sepia-toned images on 85 × 100 mm glass slides. The nine glass photograms preserved in the KIT Archives are like a time capsule, capturing the limitations of early photography. To avoid issues with tonal value reproduction, Meyer photographed paintings from engravings, thereby transferring the older reproduction medium into a new technical process. This is particularly evident in the Karlsruhe collection, which contains slides of Titian engravings. Combined with the index detailing the collection’s distribution across different epochs, the Karlsruhe glass photograms are not only historical documents of photography but also artifacts of the evolution of the media in art history and the nineteenth-century teaching canon. Materially, these artifacts are notable for the visible traces of manual work, highlighting the experimental nature of the project. Beyond their object-specific characteristics, Meyer’s pioneering work also represents a significant intervention in university infrastructure. The newly acquired projector and the installation of dimmable gas lighting were designed to establish a new media disposition, one that would have a lasting impact on art history and academic practice. Maria Männig