The Arcades Project - Operi

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happy to have faithfully reproduced a beloved countenance . ... It docs not disdain
an overcoat and is not embarrassed by crinolines; it accepts nature and the
wodd as they are. Its sincerity accommodates everything, and though its plaster
casts of stearin can be transposed into marble, into terracotta, into alabaster, or
into bronze, . .. it never asks, in return for its work, what its elder sister would
demand in payment; it requests only the cost of materials." Theophile Gautier,
"Photosculpture: 4·2 Boulevard de rEtoile," (Paris,
1864), pp. 10-11. The essay includes, at the end, a woodcut with
photosculptures, one of which portrays Gautier. [Y9a,2]
"He refined the illusionary art of the panormna and invented the diorama. He
joined forces with another painter, and on July 11, 1822, on the Rue de Sanson in
Paris ... , he opened an exhibition whose fame quickly spread . ... This inventor
and entrepreneur . .. was dubbed a knight in the I ... egion of Honor. Midnight Mass,
the Temple of Solomon, Edinburgh in the sinister glow of a conflagration, and
Napoleon's Tomb transfigured naturally by the aureole of a rosy sunset: such are
the wonders that were shown here. A translator of Daguerre's own account of his
two inventions (1839) portrays very nicely the multiplicity oflights involved, great
and small, splendid, secret, and terrifying: The spectator sits in a small amphitheater;
the stage seems to him covered by a curtain which is still bathed in darkness.
Gradually, however, this darkness yields to a twilight. ... : a landscape or
prospect emerges more clearly; the dawn is beginning . ... Trees stand out from
the shadows; the contours of mountains, of' houses, become visible . . . ; the day
has broken. The sun climbs ever higher; through t.he open window of a house one
sees a kitchen stove slowly flaming up, while in a corner of the landscape a group of'
campers is ranged round a cooking pot, under which t.he campfire is beginning to
blaze; a forge becomes visible, its furnace g,iving off sparks as though . . . from
continuous stoking. Mter a while, . .. the daylight begins to wane, and the reddish
luster of t.he artiHcial flame grows stronger; once again there is advancing twilight,
and finally nocturnal gloom. Soon, however, the moonlight assert.s its rights, and
the region is visible anew in the soft tints of the illuminated night: a mariner's
lant.ern flares up on board a ship that is anchored in the foreground of a harbor; in
the background of an admirahle perspective of a church, the candles on the altar
are lighted, and the previously invisihle parishioners are now illuminated by the
rays streaming down from the altar; or grief-stricken men are standing at. the edge
of a landslide, its devastations lit up hy the moon at the very spot. where, shortly
before, the Ruffiherg had formed the hackground to the lovely Swiss landscape
of Goldau. '" Cited as " Ubersetzer von Daguerres Schrift iiher seine beiden Er­
Hndungen (1839)," in Dolf Sternherger, '"Das wunderhare Licht: Zum 150 Gehurt.stag
Daguerres," Frankjit,rter Zeitltng , November 1937. (YIO,l]
The entrance of the temporal factor into the panoramas is brought about
through the succession of tin,es of day (with well-known lighting tricks). In this
way, the panorama transcends painting and anticipates photography. Owing to
its technological fonnation, the photograph, in contrast to the painting, can and