The Arcades Project - Operi

not the process. Whoever possesses the necessary skills and happy inspiration will
be able to obtain the samc effects from any one of these means of reproduction."
Louis Figuier, La PhotographiR au. Salon de 1859 (Paris, 1860), pp. 4-5. [Y6,7]
M. Quinet . .. scemed to want to introduce into poetry the sort of genre that the
English painter Martin inaugurated in art. . . . The poet . . . did not
shrink from having the cathedrals kneel hefore the sepulcher of Our Lord, and
showing the towns absorhed in comhing out upon their shoulders, with a comh of
gold, their tresses ofhlond columns, while the towers danced a strange roundelay
with the mountains." Alfred Nettement, Histoire de la litterat;ure!l'a1U;aise sons Ie
gou.vernement de luillet (Paris, 1859), vol. 1, p. 131. [Y6a,1]
l.'At the world exhibition of 1855, photography, despite its lively claims, could gain
no entry into the sanctuary of the hall on the Avenue Montaigne; it was condemned
to seek asylum in the immense bazaar of assorted products that Hlled the Palais de
PIndustrie. In 1859, under growing pressure, the museum committee . . . accorded
a place in the Palais de PIndustrie for the exhibition of photography; the
exhibition site was on a level with that made uvailahle to painting and engraving,
but it had a separate entrance and was set, so to speak, in a different key. " Louis
Figuier, La Photographie au Salon de 1859 (Paris, 1860), p. 2. [Y6a,2]
'"A skilliul photographer always has a distiIutive style, just like a draftsman or a
painter; . .. and, what's more, . .. the distinctive character of the artistic spirit of
each nation is clearly revealed . . . in the works produced in different countries
. . . . A French photographer could never be confused . . . with one of his
colleagues from across the Channel." Louis Figuier, La Photographie au Salon de
1859 (Paris, 1860), p. 5. [Y6a,3]
The beginnings of photomontage come out of the attempt to ensure that unages
of the landscape retain a painterly character. "M. Silvy has an excellent system
for producing his pictures . ... Instead of linposing, on all his landscapes indifferently,
one and the same sky fomled from a uniform negative, he takes the
trouble, wherever possible, of separately enhancing, one after tl,e otller, the view
of the landscape and that of the sky which crowns it. Here resides one of the
secrets of M. Silvy:' Louis Figuier, La Photographie au Salon de 1859 (Paris,
1860), p. 9. [Y6a,4]
It is significant that Figuier's booklet on the Salou of Photography of 1859 begins
with a review of laudscape photography. [Y6a,5]
Ai the Salon de Photographie of 1859, numerous "voyages": to Egypt, to JCl'usalem,
to Greece, to Spain. In his account, Figuier ohserves: