Gloom and sparkle

As we are constantly reminded, every exhibition in these novelty-obsessed times has to be the first to do something, and the Tate’s rather dreary photo show is no exception. ‘The first major exhibition ever to present a photographic portrait of Britain from the invention of the medium to the present day,’ trumpets the press release. What a rich and varied panoply of images that suggests, and how tawdry and oddly defeated the reality proves to be. Forgive me if I single out only a few photos which seem to express some kind of hope or optimism: the leaden weight of material here is so depressing as to require substantial editing.  

The exhibition begins well, with Fox Talbot’s twig broom artily angled in an open doorway; an intriguing cyanotype by Anna Atkins; Tennyson and Carlyle by Julia Margaret Cameron. But is it more than another roll-call of the big names of photography? Roger Fenton is here of course, but so is the Barnardo’s archive.