The Arcades Project - Operi

Among the inventions that predate photography one should mention, in particu­
lar, the lithograph (invented in 1805 by A10is Senefelder and introduced into
France some years later by Philippe de Lasteyrie) and the physionotrace, which,
for its part, represents a mechanization of the process of cutting silhouettes.
"Gilles Louis Chretien, ... in 1786, . .. successfully invented an apparatus which
... combined two different modes of making portraits : that of the silhouette and
that of the engraving . ... The physionotrace was based on the well-known prin­
ciple of the pantograph. A system of parallelograms was articulated in such a way
as to be capable of transfer to a horizontal plane. With the aid of a dry stylus, the
operator traces the contours of a drawing. An inked stylus traces the lines of the
first stylus, and reproduces the drawing on a scale determined by the relative
position of the two styluses:' Gisela Freund, "La Photographie au point de vue
sociologique" (manuscript, pp. 19-20). The apparatus was equipped with a
viewfinder. Life-size reproductions could be obtained. [Y3,3]
11,e reproduction time with the physionotrace was one minute for normal sil­
houettes, three minutes for colored ones. It is characteristic that the begitmings of
the technologizing of the portrait, as instanced in this apparatus, set back the art
of the portrait qualitatively as much as photography later advanced it. "One can
see, on examining the quite enormous body of work produced with the
physionotrace, that the portraits all have the same expression: stiff, schematic,
and featureless . ... Although the apparatus reproduced the contours of the face
with mathematical exactitude, this resemblance remained expressionless because
it had not been realized by an artist:' Gisela Freund, "La Photographie au point
de vue sociologique" (manuscript, p. 25). It would have to be shown here just
why this primitive apparatus, in contrast to the camera, excluded "artistry:'
[Y3a,1]
"In Marseilles, around 1850, there were at most four or five painters of' miniatures,
of whom two, perhaps, had gained a certain reputation by executing fifty
portraits in the course of a year. These artists earned just enough to make a
living . . . . A few years later, there were forty to fifty photographers in Marseilles
. ... They each produced, on the average, between 1,000 and 1,200 plates
per year, which they sold for 15 francs apiece; t.his made for yearly receipts of
18,000 francs, so that, together, they constituted an industry earning nearly a
million. And this same development can be seen in all the major cities of France. '
Gisela Freund La Photographie au point de vue sociologique" (manuscript,
pp. 15-16), citing Vidal, Memoire de La seance du 15 novembre 1868 de La Societe
Statistique de Marseille. Reproduced in the Bulletin de La Societe fraru;aise de
Photographie (1871), pp. 37, 38, 40. [Y3a,2]
On the interlinking of technological inventions: ( . When he wanted to experiment
with lithography, Niepce, who lived in the country, ran into the greatest difficulties
in procuring the necessary stones. It was then that he got the idea of replacing the
stones with a metal plate and the crayon with sunlight." Gisela Freund, "La Pho-