An Eye on Ourselves: 'American Snapshot'

Map It:  Archives-Navy Mem'l 

JUST AS THE INVENTION of the phonograph put front-parlor music-making within reach of folks who'd never dare to hold forth at the piano, the development of inexpensive cameras that used roll film democratized the making of pictures.

And though it took about a century for the turntable to be recognized as a musical instrument, the family camera won some respect reasonably quickly.

Just not in the hallowed halls of Art.

Even with fine-art photography, the National Gallery was fairly late to the table, inaugurating its photography department in 1990, the year after it observed the medium's sesquicentennial.

Hobbyist shutterbugging took a little bit longer to win approval.

The selling point of "The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978: From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson" is that while amateur work may not be polished, that isn't to say it's unschooled. Many homegrown picture-takers received solid instruction at the foot of popular culture.

Some of the show's most revealing moments fall at the intersection of visual expression and musical taste. The unknown lovers in a century-old shot marked "??" are nestled in a bower of phrases, many of them snatches of popular song, from the title of "When You First Kiss the Last Girl You Love" to a quote from "Love Me, and the World Is Mine" and a playful riff on "Bedelia." Constructing romantic identity from music-industry tropes is nothing new.

Another couple, who play with ghost images in a pair of turn-of-the century snaps, each fading from the frame in turn, appear to have his-and-hers songs. On the music stand of the spinet are copies of "My Love With Golden Hair" and "Whistling Rufus." The latter is still performed today at old-time music festivals, only without its casually racist lyric.

The link between household imagery and the iconography of popular music can only be inferred from a 1978 Polaroid in which a woman on the cusp of old age flips the bird to the photographer, her upraised finger a tidy rhyme with the full-size candle jabbed in her birthday cake.

She's just gotta be a Johnny Cash fan.

» National Gallery of Art, 600 Constitution Ave. NW; through Dec. 31; 202-737-4215. (Archives-Navy Memorial)

Written by Express contributor Glenn Dixon

Photos courtesy NGA