The Arcades Project - Operi

[Photography]
Sun, look out for yourself!
-A.J. Wiertz, Oeuvres litteraircs (Paris, 1870), p. 374
If one day the sun should sputter out,
'Twill be a mortal who rekindles it.
-Laurencin and Clairville, Ie Roi Dagobert a l'exj)ositioll de 1844,
Theatre du VimdeviUc, April 19, 1844 (Paris, 1844), p. 18 [lines
spoken by the Genius of Industry]
A prophecy from the year 1855: " Only a few years ago there was hor11 to us a
machine that has since become the glory of our age and that. day after day amazes
the mind and startles the eye. / This machine, a century hence, will be the hrush,
the pnlctte, the colors, the craft, the practice, the patience, the glance, the touch,
the paste, the glaze, the trick, the relief, the finish, the rendering. I A century
hence, ther( will he no more hricklayers of painting; there will he only architectspainters
in the full sense of the word. I And arc we really to imagine that the
daguerreotype has murdered art.? No, it kills t.he work of patience, hut it does
homage to t.he work of thought. I When the daguerreotype, this titan {hild, will
have attained the age of maturity, when all its power and potential will have been
unfolded, then the genius of art will suddenly seize it hy the collar and exclaim:
"l"-Tine! You are mine now! We are going to work together. '" A. J. -Wiertz, Oewvres
litteraI,l'es (Paris, 1870), p. 309. From an article, cOLa Photographie/' that appeared
for the first time in June 1855, in La Nation, and ended with a reference to
the new invention of photographic enlargement, whidl makes it possible to produce
life-size photos. Bricklayer-painters are, for Wiertz, those ""who apply themselves
to the material part only," who are good at ""rendering." [YI,l]
Industrialization in literature. On Scribe. ""Although he made fUll of the big industrialists
and moneymen he picked up the secret of their 8U(eess. It did not escape
hi,s cagle eye that, in the last analysis, all wealth rests on the art 0 f getting others to
work for Uf). SO then, groul1dhreaking genius that he was, he transferred the
principle of the division of lahor from the workshops of tailors, cahinetmakers,
and manufacturers of pen nibs to the ateliers of dramati( artists, who, before this