The Arcades Project - Operi

voyages photographiques.
p. 35.
Louis Figuier La Photographie au Salon de 1859,
[Y6a,6]
Among the works of reproduction to which Figuier gives special attention, in his
Photographie au Salon, are the reproduction of the Raphael cartoon from Hampton
Court-the work ... that dominates the entire photographic exhibition of
1859" (p. 51)-and that of a manuscript of Ptolemy's Geography datiug from the
fourteenth century and kept, at that time, in the monastery of Mount Athos.
[Y7, 1]
There were portraits specifically designed to be viewed through the stereoscope.
This fashion was current in England, above all. [Y7,2]
Figuier (pp. 77-78) does not omit to mention the possibility that '"microscopic
photographs" could be used in time of war to transmit secret messages (in the form
ofminiatul'e telegrams). [Y7,3]
"One thing . . . made clear by a careful inspection of' the exhibition . is the
present perfection ... of the positive proof. Five or six years ago, photography
was almost exclusively concerned with the negative, . . . and it was rare indeed
that anyone gave thought to the utility of printing from a positive image." Louis
Figuier, La Photographic att Salon de 1859 (Paris, 1860), p. 83. [Y7,4]
Symptom, it would seem, of a profound displacement: painting must submit to
being measured by the standard of photography: "We will be in agreement with
the public in admiring . .. the fine artist who ... has appeared this year widl a
painting capable of holding its own, in point of delicacy, with daguerrian prints:'
This assessment of Meissonnier is from Auguste Galinlard, Examen du Salon de
1849 (Paris