122 PHOTOGRAPHY IN PRINT

Where the faces all succeeded:

Each came out a perfect likeness.
Then they joined and all abused it,
Unrestrainedly abused it, Charles Baudelaire
As the worst and ugliest picture
They could possibly have dreamed of
'Giving one such strange expressions- "The Salon of 1859"
Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.
Really anyone would take us Translated by Jonathan MaYne
(Anyone that did nor know us)
For the most unpleasant people!' 1859
(Hiawatha seemed to think so, AN EXCERPT
Seemed to think it not unlikely.)
All together rang their voices,
Angry, loud, discordant voices,
As of dogs that howl in concert,
As of cats that wail in chorus.
But my Hiawatha's patience,
His politeness and his patience,
(Jnaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With the calm deliberation, The poet Charles Baudelaire ( I ilz r - r 867) was also a critic and
The intense deliberation the fiiend of many artists. His u'rath at the camera and the
Of a photographic artist: public that so slavishly folkrwed it in the quest for a perfect
But he left them in a hurry, iopy of nature exPresses not only the mid-century's growing
Left them in a mighty hurry, ,.r.rr" with machines but a philosophy that would strongly
Stating that he would not stand it, influence the art of the future. Baudelaire's emphasis on imag-
Stating in emphatic language ination and dream, the inner resPonse rather than the exterior
What he'd be before he'd stand it. fact, influenced the art of such painters as Van G<lgh and
Hurriedly he packed his boxes: Gauguin.
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes:
Hurriedly he took his ticket: During this lamentable period, a new industry arose which contributed
Hurriedly the train received him:
not a Iittle to confirm stupidity in its faith and to ruin whatever might
Thus departed Hiawatha.
remain of the divine in the French mind. The idolatrous rnob de-
manded an ideal \.'orthy of itself and appropriate to its nature-that is
perfcctly understood. In matters of painting and sculpture, the Pres-
cnt-day Credo of the sophisticated, above all in France (and I do not
think that any()nc at all would dare to state the contrar/), is this: 'I
lrelicvc irr Naturc, irnd I bclicvc only in Nature (there are good reasons
firr tlritt). I lrclicvg tlrnt Art is, anfl canl()t tre other than, the exact
r.l
 124 PHOTOGRAPHY IN PRINT
rcproducti()n of Nature (a timid and dissident sect would wish to ex-
cludc thc more repellent obiects of nature, such as skeletons or cham-
bcr-pots). Thus an industry that could give us a result identical to
Nature u.'ould be thc absolute of art.' A revengeful God has given ear
to the prayers of this multitude. Daguerre was his Messiah. And now
thc faithful says to himself: 'Since Photography gives us every guaran-
tee of exactitude that rvc could dcsire (thcy really bclie ve that, the mad
fools!), thcn Photo5Jraphy and Art are thc samc thing.' From that mo-
ment our squalid society rushecl, Narcissus to a man, to gaze at its
trivial image on a scrap of metal. A madness, an extraordinary fanati-
cisnr took posse ssitin of all these new slrn-\\,'()rshippers. Strangc abom-
in:rtions took form. By bringing together a group of rnale and fcmale
clou,ns, got r.lp like butchers ancl laundry-maids at a carnival, and by
bceging thcse beroes to bc so kincl as to hold their char.rce grirnace s f<rr
the tirlc nccessary firr the performancc, thc opcrator flattercd himself
tlrat hc'"vas reproclucing tragic or clegant scctlcs from ancient history.
Somc dcmocrurtic 'nvritcr ought to have sccn hcrc a cheap method of
<.lisscminating a loathing for history and for painting among thc pcoplc,
thus cornrnitting a double sacrilege and insulting at onc and the samc
time the clivine art of painting and the noble art of the actor. A little
Iater a thousand hungry eyes \\,'erc bcnding ovcr the pccpholcs of the
stercoscopc, as though they rvere the attic-r,r,indou's of the infinite. 'I'he
Iove of pornography, which is no less deep-rootecl in the natural heart
of man than the krve of himself, u,as not to lct slip so fine an opportu-
nity of self-satisfaction. And do not in.ragine that it was only children
on their u'ay back from school who took pleasure in these follies; the
u,orlcl '"r,as infatuated rvith them. I u,as <tnce present u,hen some fricnds
n'ere discreetly concealing some such pictures from a beautiful woman,
a \voman of high society, not of mine-thcy u'ere taking upon them-
selves sorne f-eeling of delicacy in hcr prcsence; but 'No,' she cried.
'Give thern to me! Nothing is too much fcrr me.' I srvear that I heard
that; but 'uvill believe me? 'You can see that they are great ladies,'
"vho
said Alexandre Dumas. 'There are some still greaterl' said Cazotte.l
As the photographic industry was the refuge of every would-be
painter, every painter too ill-endowed or too lazy to complete his stud-
ies, this universal infatuation bore not only the mark of a blindness, an
imbecilitv, but had also the air of a venge ance . I do not believe, or at
least I do not wish to believe, in the absolute success of such a brutish
t. The frx remark is taken from Dumas's plry La Tour de Nesle (Act
the second from Girard de Neraal's preface to Cazotte's Le Diable amourcux. TDe
somewhat clmPlicdted point of the joke h explained by Cripet in ltis note on this pasvgt
(Curiosit6s csth6ti(lucs, p. 4r,).
THE sALoN or r859 r25
conspiracy, in which, as in all others, one finds both fools and knaves;
but I am convinced that the ill-applied developments of photography,
like all other purely material developments of progress, have contrib-
uted much to the impoverishment of the French artistic genius, which
is already so scarce. In vain may our modern Fatuity roar, belch fcrrth
all the rumbling wind of its rotund stomach, spew out all the un-
digested sophisms with which reccnt philosophy has stuffed it from
top to bottom; it is nonetheless obvious that this inclustry, by invading
the territories of art, has become art's most mortal enemy, and that the
confusion of their several functions prevents any of them from being
propcrly fulfilled. Poetry ar.rd progress are like two ambitious men who
hate one another with an instinctive hatrcd, and whcn thcy mcct upon
the same road, one of thern has to givc place. If ph<ltography is allou,cd
to supplement art in somc of its functions, it will soon have supplanted
or corrupted it altogcthcr, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude
which is its natural ally. It is timc, then, for it to rcturn to its truc
duty, which is to be thc scrvant of the scienccs ancl arts-but thc vcry
humble scrvant, like printing or shorthand, which havc ncither created
nor supplerncnted litcraturc. Let it hasten to enrich the tourist's album
and restore to his cyc the precision u,hich his mcmory may lack; let it
adorn thc naturalist's library, and enlarge rlicroscopic animals; lct it
evcn provide inf<rrnration to crlrroborate thc astronomcr's hypotheses;
in short, let it be thc secretary and clerk of whoever needs an absolute
factual exactitude in his prof'ession-up to that point nothing c<luld be
bettcr. Let it rescue from otrlivion those tumbling ruins, those trooks,
prints and manuscripts which time is devouring, precious things whose
form is dissolving and u,'hich demand a place in the archivcs of our
memory-it will be thankcd and applauded. But if it be allowed to
encroach upon the domain of the impalpable and the imaginary, upon
anything whose value clepends solely upon the addition of something
of a man's soul, then it will be so much the worse for us!
I knou' very well that some people will retort, 'The disease u,hich
you have just been diagnosing is a discase of imbeciles. What man
r.l,orthy of the name of artist, and r.l,hat true connoisseur, has ever
confused art u'ith industry?' I knorv it; and yet I rvill ask them in my
turn if they believe in the contagion of good and evil, in the action of
the mass on individuals, and in the involuntary, forced obedience of
the individual to the mass. It is an incontestable, an irresistible law that
thc artist should act upon the public, and that the public should react
l,sc. g);
up<.rn thc artist; and beiides, those terrible witnesses, the facts, are easy
t() stucly; thc disastcr is verifiable. Each day art further diminishes its
sclf-respcct lry lrou'irrg rion,n tref<rrc cxtcrnal rcality; cach day the
T26 PHOTOGRAPHY IN PRINT

painter becomes more and more given to painting not what he dreams
Lut what hc sees. Neverthcless it is a happiness to dream, and it used to
be a glory to exprcss u'hat one dreamt' But I ask youl does the painter
still knou' this happiness?
Could you find irn honest observcr to dcclarc that the invasion of
photography and the great industrial madness of our times have no part
at all in this deplorattlc rcsult? Are u'c to suPPosc that a people rvhose
My Lile as a Photographer
cycs ar(r grou..ing uscd to considcring the rcsults of a material scicnce as 'fransla[ed by -l'homas Rcpcnsck
though thcy r.vcrc thc proclr,rcts of tl.re ttcautiful, u'ill not in thc course
of time have singularly dinrinishecl its f:rcultics of ir"rdging and of feeling
u,hat arc among tht: m()st ethcrcal antl irnnlirtcrial aspccts of crcation? 1900
AN l,)x(ll,.RI']'t'

(iaspar liclix 'l'ournachon ( I llzo- I9 t o), knorvn as Nrrtlar'

lr"gan a, a caricaturist, trut in rtj5 j hc and his trrother Adrian

.rt"rtrlirh".l a Ph()t()graPhy stuclio. It rvas Natlirr's idca to pho-
tograph his iubiccis iref,,rc drarving tl'rcrn, yct his photo-
g.;pht themsclvcs sottn ntldc him knou'n as one of the best
i..r.h portraitists of artists, writcrs, and c<tmposers' Ll
r8-5it, he ttxik thc hrst aerial photographs frorn a ball<xrn'
ln
r 86o he photographccl the seu'crs of Paris try electric light;
thesc arc am,,r-rg ,-n. earliest picturcs taken lry rrrtificial light.
In r 874, the Impressionists held their lirst erhibit in his stu-
di<t. Quand i'ltais photograpbe, the story of his years as
a pho-
,ogrrph.., was published in rgoo and includcs this curious
little anecdote about Balzac.

The uneducated and the ignorant were not the only ones.
to hesitate
high"' so the common
L.fo." this peril. "The lo"wliest to the most
;;;;;; g,r"r,',..-t tcd before the Daguerrtgt1pi- y,:::^::'l: few of
as if frrlnr a diselse' I o cnoose
,,l.,. J,,L trrilliant intellects shrank back
wils ()Ire of thosc who could
,rnly f.,,,, llll()llg ,lr. ut'y higl-rcst: Balz'ac
t)J