Photography as a Relic

Scientific instrument

There were many inventors of photography, but the first process to truly take on historical significance was unquestionably that of Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. It was his polished silver-coated copper plate that was considered the greatest invention of the century—a century that was already proving to be very productive as early as 1839. Until then, all images produced had always been the result of manual labor. The possibility of an image so rich in detail, so perfect, produced mechanically without any manual intervention, was hailed as a tremendous achievement.

The usefulness of photography as a document—and as a vehicle for the dissemination of knowledge and information in all possible fields where an image could replace lengthy descriptions—was evident. Researchers across all disciplines quickly recognized the potential of a process capable of generating images quickly, accurately, and objectively.

But just as text lends itself to scientific or legal discourse, and just as words can convey objective information as well as poetry, the question soon arose as to whether photography might not have the same capacity to move between these two worlds—the literal and the metaphorical.

Many believed this to be true and saw in it the possibility of a revolution. It is very easy to find statements in the writings of that era announcing the imminent end of painting, given its inability to compete with the heliographic image in terms of precision and fidelity. Thousands of pages were written debating whether or not photography could be considered an art form; whether it could replace art; and what kind of photography could aspire to this privileged status.

This creates a great deal of confusion regarding how we interpret today what was at stake in the relationship between art and photography. At the root of this error is the attempt to understand “art” in the 19th century as we understand “art” in the 21st century. But between the scientist photographing botanical species and the artist exhibiting battle scenes at the Art Salons at the Palais-Royal in Paris, there was a whole world of image-making that has virtually disappeared in the contemporary world.

When we talk about “art” today, we associate the term with museums, galleries, cultural spaces, and the like. We think of artists as celebrities, and among those just starting out, young people seeking calls for submissions and scholarships to study and showcase their work within a well-defined circuit known as “contemporary art.”

In the mid-19th century, there was a field corresponding to this realm that was known as the “Fine Arts.” However, that was just the tip of the iceberg; there were many, many more ways for someone to work under the title of “artist.”

The Art World in the 19th Century

Among wealthier families, knowing how to draw was a basic skill in the 19th century and was considered part of a good education. It was seen as elegant and a sign of refinement. For those of more modest means, drawing and painting offered a path to social advancement, as there was an entire sector that employed a large workforce for these activities. In every medium to large-sized city, the municipality offered training through evening classes, which provided an opportunity to leave factory or even farm work.

It is important to remember that everyday objects were, as a rule, richly decorated with ornaments, still lifes, biblical scenes, mythological scenes, and genre scenes. This applied to tableware, furniture, rugs, textiles—practically everything that was produced. In architecture as well, there was extensive use of paintings depicting these scenes and themes on the walls of public administrative buildings, churches, and the homes of wealthier families.

Another very important aspect was the reproduction of the great masters’ works of art. Since the original works were not widely available, the only way to become familiar with and study the work of the geniuses of the past—whose works were housed in distant museums and collections—was through engravings, being metal engravings the preferred media.

Lithography made its debut at the very beginning of the 19th century. The new method made it possible to produce hundreds of copies from a single original before it needed to be retouched. Major publishers of both artistic and scientific prints emerged as very successful companies.

The press in general became heavily illustrated starting in the 1850s, and this also required a large number of engravers. The process involved woodblock engraving. This technique reached an extraordinary level of refinement that, unfortunately, has been lost.

If we now consider art solely as the “fine arts,” there was an institutionalized and unchallenged hierarchy, established—in the case of France—by the Académie des Beaux-Arts, but this understanding was shared by all the academies across Europe. Within this hierarchy, the scale from most important to least important was organized as follows:

This hierarchy was based on a single fundamental philosophical premise: the value of art was determined by its intellectual and moral weight. The more a work of art required the human mind to invent, idealize, and compose from the imagination, the higher its status. The more it merely copied raw reality, the lower its status.

It should also be noted that the scale and techniques employed—and, consequently, the cost of production—also increased as the intellectual and moral aspirations of each category rose.

Just below the Fine Arts, but still considered art, are the categories that lean more toward the “crafts.” Here are two that have clashed with photography, as we’ll see below.

In short, there was a growth in the circulation of images that occurred before mechanical means of producing them were available. So everything was very artisanal until photography opened up the possibility of eliminating much of the manual labor and mechanizing the process. In this context, photography was welcomed with joy by some and with fear by others.

Reception of Photography

“From today on, painting is dead.” This quote is attributed to the painter Paul Delaroche (1797–1856). It is said that he uttered these words the moment he saw a daguerreotype for the first time. If that really happened, it illustrates how, even back then, to cause a scandal—or to “go viral,” as we’d say today—celebrities were ready to blurt out the first shocking nonsense that came to mind.

Paul Delaroche was a history painter whose work was inspired by Romanticism but executed in a style closer to Neoclassicism. At the time he saw the daguerreotype in 1839, he was working on a 27-meter-long triptych depicting an imaginary gathering of the 75 greatest artists of all time, including painters, sculptors, and architects. But the anecdote really went viral, and even today there are those who say and believe that photography—because it is inevitably “naturalistic” and because it depicts reality with a degree of perfection that not even the greatest of artists could achieve—was indeed a threat to painting.

But the art world at that time was buzzing. It had never been so vibrant. The annual salons drew huge crowds. Debates between classicism, romanticism, and realism fueled a lively press. Collecting was booming like never before, and artists were producing more and more works without prior commissions—they were creating for the market. Photography was by no means a threat to the fine arts. On the contrary, it soon became their ally, as we shall see below.

The artists who quickly realized the threat were those at the bottom of the pyramid. They were the ones from whom nothing more was expected than a good copy, an illustration, or some kind of record that was supposed to be as impersonal as possible. More often than not, these images were intended for large-scale reproduction, whether through metal engraving—using a burin or etching—or the newly invented lithography. Otherwise, they were drawings and paintings linked to industrial production that still relied on artisanal processes requiring an artist’s hand to bring them to life.

There was a very clear distinction between art as a métier—in which artists were, in a sense, skilled workers—and the Fine Arts, where artists were expected to demonstrate erudition and mastery of technique. The art that photography threatened—and even promised to replace—was not Art with a capital A.

Artists such as Delacroix, Corot, Courbet, and Ingres saw photography as a very useful tool. For one thing, it allowed them to study real anatomy without the presence of live models, as is the case in the image above. It also allowed them, in the case of portraits, to reduce the time spent in posing sessions with their subjects. For landscapes, it served as a very practical sketchbook for later work in the studio. They didn’t make a big fuss about it—some even hid it—but photography was adopted as a tool to streamline or refine the final work, which continued to be produced using traditional media, primarily oil on canvas.

The Photographers

Not only did photography not kill painting, but it is also true that a significant number of photographers were also painters or at least had an arts background. It was common to maliciously say that photographers were failed painters and to accuse them of usurping the work of true artists. But this applied more to a certain class of photographers, as we will see shortly. Generally speaking, those who took up photography tended to come from a cultural and financial elite. They soon developed a concept of “premium” photography, far removed from vulgarity.

Ernest Lacan was a journalist, art critic, and one of the earliest advocates and historians of photography. In 1853, he wrote an interesting article in the newspaper *La Lumière*, of which he was the editor-in-chief, in which he identified three categories of photographers.

With these three “types,” Lacan took stock of what existed in the world of photography. The options were: to specialize in something repetitive but highly profitable, such as daguerreotype portraiture, which would be replaced around the turn of the 1860s by the carte de visite—at a much lower cost and appealing to a much larger audience. This was the choice made by photographers working in portrait studios.

The other approach would be to try to broaden the horizons of photography, develop new processes, photograph what had not yet been photographed—in short, to be at the forefront of new technology. This was the choice made by artistic and amateur photographers.

It is important to note that many members of this photographic elite also sold their work. They typically produced architectural studies, travel photographs, portraits, and genre scenes, which were edited and sold as individual photographic prints or bound into albums. Several publishers of these photographic albums emerged. Their clients came from the cultural and academic circles themselves, as well as from European courts and institutions such as museums.

But these photographers invariably had other sources of income, and their photographic ventures—with a few exceptions—were more often a source of losses than of profits. Nevertheless, they played a fundamental role in the development of photography. With the exception of lens and equipment manufacturers—which were companies with brands, partners, employees, and engineering departments—much of the development of the chemical aspects and the photographic processes themselves was driven by private enthusiasts.

Photography as Art

It’s very common to give the recognition of photography as art an epic air. But these heroic approaches tend to create idealized enemies to add more drama to the saga’s protagonist’s final victory and end up distorting what actually happened. Photography didn’t have that many enemies. Overall, it was very well received and admired precisely by those in power. I believe we will better understand what was happening with a less romanticized view, and we need to examine each floor of the fine arts building separately and cross-reference them with the types of photography and photographers, as proposed by Ernest Lacan.

Photography vs. Engraving

As we saw above, engravers—whether working with burin, wood, or lithography—immediately sensed the threat that photography posed, since the bulk of their work consisted of producing images that were visually faithful to their subject. Now, that was the very nature of photography. Resistance organized itself to prove that even a copy must be made with “artistry,” and that the mechanical process of photography would be axiomatically incapable of this.

This argument isn’t entirely without merit if we consider that engravings can be much more instructive than a photographic image. This is especially true when compared to 19th-century photography, which tended to lose detail in shadows and highlights and did not offer good color reproduction when rendered in monochrome tones. Just imagine a photograph of a building’s wall that was in the shade on a bright, sunny day. It would likely come out completely black and devoid of detail. But an engraver would know exactly how to preserve whatever was essential for understanding the image.

But the argument wasn’t limited to the limitations of photography at the time. Even in the vast market for reproductions of the great masters of painting—which made the fortune of many publishers specializing in prints— the argument was that only the engraver would be capable of analyzing the artist’s intent regarding colors, composition, and details of the painterly technique—which could be thick, smooth, with or without brushstrokes, etc. The engraver would be able to incorporate these elements—translated into the vocabulary of engraving—and produce a print that best matched the effect of the original.

To further fuel the engravers’ anger toward photographers, the new invention brought them a new problem: piracy. After the introduction of the wet plate process, it became common for a publisher to invest in the costly process of producing a metal matrix and completing the first print run, only to discover that someone had purchased a copy, photographed it, and was selling photographic copies at a much lower price.

Photography vs. Miniature Portraits

It is worth mentioning one field in which painting has been overwhelmingly replaced by photography. This is the case with miniatures. Since at least the 16th century, European courts have collected small portraits—usually circular or oval in shape—painted on leather, ivory, or cardboard, generally measuring two to four inches on the longest side. It was common for a court artist to be appointed to portray various members of the family, and these small portraits, set in elaborately decorated frames, served a purpose very similar to what would later become the photographic family album. Some miniature painters built reputations, were in high demand, and lived comfortably off their work.

Photography vs. Fine Arts

As mentioned above, the leading artists of the 19th century did not feel in the least threatened by photography. They saw it more as a tool that was far superior to the camera obscura or camera lucida, among other devices they were familiar with and even occasionally used to produce a visually accurate image.

The theory that these artists might have been troubled by the advent of photography seems to make sense, since it is generally assumed that, before the advent of abstract art, the ultimate goal of painting was to copy reality. This view was actively promoted by avant-garde artists of the early 20th century, such as the Russian Kazimir Malevich, for example. Unfortunately, it seems that this crude view caught on, and even today there are those who still claim that photography solved the problem of painting—at least figurative painting—and thus rendered it obsolete.

But the fact is that while during the Middle Ages there was little concern for tangible reality, and during the Renaissance, on the contrary, nature was regarded as the artist’s true teacher (as Leonardo da Vinci put it), it is also a fact—one that is often overlooked—that for the Renaissance artists themselves, slavishly copying nature would be precisely the degradation of artistic creation. Nature was a source of inspiration but not a fixed model to be copied.

The great cause of the Renaissance was to redefine painting—no longer merely a manual craft—and elevate it to the status of a Liberal Art, so that it might take its place among the seven established Liberal Arts: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. This was the pantheon of the arts and the humanities. Artists wanted to see painting among them, not as the menial craft of a copyist artisan.

In practical terms, this means that visual accuracy was not the criterion used to determine the value of a work of art. What we see in texts, critiques, and manuals on painting from the 16th century onward is not only an analysis of more philosophical aspects, such as the “idea,” iconography, or the moral underpinnings of painting, but primarily purely formal or plastic aspects—such as color, modeling, drawing, and the materiality of the image rendered in the pictorial layer—which constituted the artist’s personal hallmarks. The notions of “genius” and “style” emerged during this period.

While remaining convincing as a scene, one marveled at how much the artist invented and intervened in the depiction, often even straying from what would be considered visual realism, as was the case with Mannerism.

A positioning error

When, in 1839–40, its inventors made a point of emphasizing that photography was not even a representation of nature created by the photographer—but rather nature itself representing itself—the natural conclusion was that, without an artist, there could be no art in photography. There would be no conflict, but also no common ground, between art and photography. The photographer would never be a “genius”; instead, he was lumped in with manual artists, artisans, and mere copyists. In the early years of photography, the photographer was often referred to simply as an “operator.” But for it to be art, the creative role and the difficulties overcome by the artist—by the genius—were fundamental. It was not by purchasing a daguerreotype kit that, in a few days, someone would become an artist and their images works of art.

But the images themselves—produced by Lacan’s professional and amateur photographers—were captivating. There was something about them that inspired a sense of wonder, much like that evoked by a good painting. It was inevitable. They soon raised the possibility of viewing them as works of art, of creating art through photography. But this was not in the sense of replacing or competing with painting. It was rather a new form or a new technique capable of producing images imbued with poetry and capable of triggering feelings and associations that were not literal but rather metaphorical and evocative.

The turning point was convincing even the most skeptical that this artistic potential was not a matter of chance, nor was it an attribute exclusive to the subject of the photograph or something inherent in the process, but rather the result of the photographer’s choices, knowledge, and talent.

In his 1851 Treatise on Photography on Paper, Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Évrard acknowledges the misconception: “Unfortunately, the public sees photography merely as a physics experiment that can be carried out with varying degrees of skill, but whose result is independent of the operator’s will: this view has produced the most deplorable results […] It is a pity that the daguerreotype, precisely because of its ease and apparent fidelity, has contributed to spreading a belief so contrary to all the precepts of art.”

To reposition photography, photographic artists launched a campaign that bears similarities to the aforementioned Renaissance debate: the redefinition of painting that sought to move it away from being a purely manual skill. Now it was the act of photography that needed to be elevated to the status of creation, whose artistic value would depend sufficiently on the photographer’s talent.

In other words, in addition to the possibility of being art from the standpoint of its appreciation—or of “looking like art”—in order to prove its worth, photography also had to demonstrate that this poetry, when detached from the images, was the result of the talent and mastery exercised by the artist-photographer. Ironically, when François Arago presented the daguerreotype at the famous Academy session on January 7, 1839, and emphasized that the process was simple and that “anyone could use it,” that statement left a lasting impression and was widely used by those who later sought to discredit photography as an art form.

It may seem very strange today, to anyone who practices digital or analog photography, that the photographer’s role could have been so overlooked. But the truth is that, by one of those quirks of history, photography began with a process in which the photographer actually intervened relatively little, as Blanquart-Évrard observed. The daguerreotype, being a direct positive in which the plate itself—which was inside the camera—was already the final photograph, did not allow much room for creative maneuvering in terms of its artistic flexibility. There was no in-depth understanding of the photochemical processes involved, and when it simply “worked”—when an image emerged—that was more than enough. It was more a matter of “did it work or not” rather than “how did it turn out” or how to make it turn out differently.

The extreme level of detail provided by the daguerreotype was completely at odds with a principle very dear to the artists of the time, according to which the expressive power of an image depended on the artist’s ability to make “sacrifices,” that is, the artist should know how to eliminate anything superfluous or that would distract the viewer from the main narrative. Gustave Le Gray, who presented himself as an artist-photographer, wrote in his *Photography: A New Theoretical and Practical Treatise*: “In my opinion, the artistic beauty of a photographic print consists, on the contrary, almost always in the sacrifice of certain details.”

Delacroix formalized this theory in 1857, but it was by no means a new concept. As early as the 16th century, Baldassarre Castiglione coined the term sprezzatura to describe a painter’s ability to leave parts of the image seemingly incomplete, unfinished, or lacking in detail. The same idea also appears in other treatises and critical texts under different names and explanations. Once again, the concept of “copying reality” was never the goal in the fine arts. Many claimed that it was. Many point to Alberti’s “window” to argue that painting was meant to be “photographic.” But the most admired artists—those considered true geniuses—were precisely those who directly opposed this approach.

So the daguerreotype actually fit quite well with this view that it was nature itself that was being reproduced, and that the photographer’s role, as a mere operator, was to carry out a mechanical and always identical process. Even in Talbot’s first negative-positive images, he also expressed this potential of his invention. He even wrote in his Pencil of Nature that the abbey in Lacock, where he lived, had been the first building in history to take its own portrait.

But as Talbot’s calotype began to be refined, a greater understanding of the process—and of the choices and resources available to the photographer to significantly influence the final result—began to emerge.

In the development of the calotype—ironically carried out primarily by Frenchmen such as the aforementioned Gustave le Gray and Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard—methods were discovered to apply even the theory of sacrifice to photographic images in accordance with the aesthetic intent of the photographer. The decision to suppress or retain details became possible and controllable through the use of paper, which could yield a more or less refined definition depending on the use of waxes and the choice of paper. This was further expanded by the possibility of compressing the tonal range in the shadows or highlights, thereby directing the viewer’s gaze toward an idea preconceived by the photographer. This was achieved by adjusting the exposure-to-development ratio, as well as by selecting developers, processing times, temperatures, and so on. The tonal ranges of the final prints also became more predictable with the use of toners. Ultimately, it became clear—what is obvious today—that beyond the choice of subject, framing, and focus, the process allows for many variations ranging from taking the photo to the final print. These choices were finally recognized as the realm in which the photographer would be consciously working as an artist.

The official seal

Alongside this conceptual debate over arguments and analyses of the photographic process, what would truly lend validity to the claim would be acceptance within official circles. The Academy of Fine Arts was the supreme authority on legitimacy, with a long history dating back to the Royal Academies of Painting and Sculpture, established in 1648. The Salons organized by the Academy were administered by the state and judged by a very conservative jury. In painting, architecture, and drawing, the success or rejection of a work determined the fate of the artists. It was therefore imperative for the photographers of the French Photographic Society, founded in 1854, that their members’ works be accepted into the salons alongside the fine arts such as painting, sculpture, and architecture.

In 1855, at the Universal Exposition in Paris, two venues—two palaces—were set up: the Palais de l’Industrie and the Palais des Beaux-Arts. The photographers of the Société Française de Photographie requested a spot in the latter, but due to pressure from the Academy of Fine Arts, they were assigned to the Palace of Industry, alongside machinery and manufactured goods. The photographers’ disappointment could not have been greater.

The conflict reached a critical point in 1859, when the Société Française de Photographie demanded to be included in the official Salon organized by the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Its lobbying efforts were strong, backed by many prominent figures with aristocratic names and considerable influence in the press. The Académie reluctantly relented: it allowed a photography exhibition to be held in the same building as the Salon des Beaux-Arts, but required a separate entrance so that visitors would not confuse photography with “true” art.

They had to settle for this victory, which was, shall we say, commendable but incomplete. Paul Périer, a founding member of the SFP, wrote in the society’s newsletter: “It is true that, while we have reason to be proud of our artistry at the exhibition, it is not because of the hospitality extended to us.”

The audience

The early years of photography were thus marked by great aspirations and achievements. The progress was remarkable. Photography was introduced to the world in 1839 by the Academy of Sciences, but it also found its place in the world of the arts, where it made its well-deserved official debut—though not until the 1859 Exhibition, 20 years later.

Great photographers captured and preserved the most significant aspects of the past and the present. These included events, monuments, nature, and even distant peoples. Nothing would be forgotten. True artists captured celebrities and leaders in culture, business, and politics, and also created images full of poetry through landscapes, genre scenes, and still lifes.

Right from the start, photography proved to be an irresistible attraction around the world. Travelers coming to Paris, London, and other major cities would very often stop by a photography studio to have their likeness captured in the camera obscura. Traveling photographers, too, were usually well received by local leaders, and it wasn’t too difficult to get them to pose for a few portraits.

In light of these lofty ideals, commercial portrait photography—practiced in studios or by traveling photographers and depicting ordinary people—seemed like a minor application of the new technology. It was a practice that was truly looked down upon by the most influential photographers. When mentioned in the press or in photo club newsletters, it was almost always to ridicule both the photographer and the subject, to lament its poor quality and the purely commercial motives of those involved.

Sometimes criticism goes beyond the quality of the photos and becomes very aggressive. In the book What You See on the Streets of Paris, by François-Victor Fournel, published in 1858, we have:

“O bourgeois of Paris and elsewhere, may you soon realize that, although you aren’t handsome in real life, you look very ugly when you have your portraits painted, especially by a mindless technology [photography] which lacks the insight to sprinkle a little golden sand over your physical imperfections and instead brutally pastes his colorless, lifeless sketch onto the canvas. If only these gentlemen and ladies were content to be ugly! Unfortunately, they want to be pretentiously ugly. Instead of that simple, dignified ugliness—which would at least inspire respectful compassion—it is the ugliness that poses solemnly before a mirror.”

He refers to the popularization of portraits when they became accessible to a wider audience. We clearly see a desire to intimidate through insults. Fournel is deeply troubled by the self-esteem displayed by the petty bourgeoisie in their desire to have their portraits. He accuses them of not resigning themselves to their ugliness but instead of wanting to be “pretentiously ugly.” He also refers to the stereotype of the poor person who possesses a “simple and dignified ugliness,” certainly thinking of the characters in genre paintings, in which the identity of those portrayed is irrelevant.

The lithograph above is part of a series by Honoré Daumier. In 19th-century France, serving on an agricultural committee (as indicated in the caption) was the ultimate symbol of bourgeois vanity in small towns. This allowed a man from the provinces, of modest standing, to act as a great civic leader. When the subject poses as a “member of the agricultural committee,” he strikes an artificially pompous, solemn, and noble pose—chest puffed out, hand resting on his hip with an imposing, statesmanlike air—as if he were a Roman senator or a minister of state. Daumier shows no mercy and undermines the pose by adding the shovel and watering can next to the proud man. He makes a point of reminding us that, in reality, this is a local farmer who judges prize-winning pigs and giant pumpkins.

The portrait photographer had a reputation for harassing and even deceiving his clients as they walked by on the street. At fairs and popular events, he would often hand out sealed envelopes, telling people they could only open them hours later, claiming that the photographic process was still underway. When the client later opened the envelope, they realized they had been deceived—either because of the poor quality of the photo or because there was no photo inside at all.

But the portrait market managed to establish itself in a surprising way. No amount of criticism was enough to prevent or even deter the crowds lining up to have “their likeness” recorded. First came the wave of daguerreotypes—small portraits housed in leather, velvet, and gilded cases, like little jewels. They were clearly the successors to miniature portraits, which also featured luxurious frames and cases.

This dominated the 1840s. In the following decade, the daguerreotype gradually lost ground to new negative/positive processes, and in the 1860s, a new format for portraits took hold and became an even bigger craze. It was the turn of the Carte de Visite, small photographs mounted on card stock measuring approximately 6×9 cm. It was an invention by André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, using a wet-plate negative and an albumin-printed positive.

When we ask about the reasons for such explosive success—especially considering that it was widely frowned upon by high culture—the go-to answer is always that portrait photography was a huge hit because there was a high demand for cheaper portraits. But that’s like saying it sold well because many people wanted to buy it. It doesn’t really explain much.

Another argument—one that is more elaborate and very common—is the idea of framing the desire for photography as yet another instance in which people with lower purchasing power naturally copy or try to imitate the more fortunate. This is what sociologist and photographer Gisele Freund tells us in her 1974 book Photographie et Société:

“But just as fashion is originally conceived and adopted by the upper echelons of society before gradually spreading to the lower classes, the same was true of photography; it was initially adopted by the dominant social class—those who held the real power: industrialists, factory owners, and bankers; statesmen, writers, and scientists; and all those who belonged to the intellectual circles of Paris. Gradually, it spread to the lower strata of the middle class and the petty bourgeoisie, as the importance of these social groups grew.”

The problem with this “explanation” is that it fails to address what the appeal was—or what set photography apart—that mobilized everyone so overwhelmingly, no matter the social position. What led “industrialists, factory owners, and bankers, statesmen,” etc., to seek out a photography studio? It is to this question that Freund should have sought an answer. But her work seems tainted by a certain aristocratic mindset that takes for granted that the future of society is conceived “in the upper echelons of society,” as if by a sort of revelation.

This fact may even seem self-evident and easily dismissed as mere curiosity, vanity, or some form of frivolity in the realm of leisure for those who had the time and money—thereby undermining the point of any further investigation. This would apply to the enlightened elite who frequented the famous studios of the artist-photographers. As for the general public, who needed no other motivation than to imitate the rich. Gisele Freund describes them in a very unflattering way that resonates with Fournel’s view:

“Grocers, owners of sewing-supply stores, watchmakers, hatters, pharmacists—all people who, for the most part, had only a small amount of capital and possessed only enough basic education to keep their accounting books, people ‘confined to the narrow horizon of a store,’ minor employees—in short, such were the members of these strata of the middle bourgeoisie who found in photography a new means of self-representation consistent with their economic and ideological conditions.”

But it is very pertinent to ask ourselves what aspects of photography enabled it to become a global phenomenon. Not all human motivations are linked to issues of social class or economic power.

This was, broadly speaking, the state of photography in the 1860s. There was an industrial and scientific use in which it served as a mechanical means of recording; there was an aesthetically motivated use for producing images with artistic value that went beyond the subject itself, and there was widespread use primarily for producing portraits—by professionals, some more and others less professional—for clients of varying “importance,” in short, for anyone who wanted to see themselves in a photograph.

From this point forward, the aim of this study is to focus on the third group. The hypothesis is that, through a closer examination of the specific characteristics of photography, we will be able to go beyond the argument that the photographic portrait serves as a means of social advancement or self-affirmation. If we consider our extremely complex relationship with images more deeply, I believe that an important layer of understanding will help us better grasp what was at stake and the developments that followed.

Photography as a Relic

Origins in Christianity

We need a brief introduction to the concept of relics as understood in Christianity. While in the pagan world of ancient Greece, mortal remains were taken outside the city because they were viewed merely as a source of pollution, in Christianity the practice was strongly influenced by the Middle East and Egypt, where the dead were mummified. This influence led to a stronger connection between body and soul, making the former a concrete manifestation of the latter.

As a religion based entirely on the connection between heaven and earth, between body and soul, through the incarnation of the Son of God in a physical body, a cult of relics—the mortal remains of the martyrs—emerged as early as the second century during the Roman persecutions. The faithful risked their lives to recover anything that could be preserved as reliquiae, a Latin word meaning “that which is left behind.” These could be body parts, the soil that had absorbed their blood, their garments, the instruments of torture—anything that had come into direct contact with the body of the saint in question was credited with powers that their death did not diminish.

In the biography of Louis IX, King of France, canonized as Saint Louis (1226–1270), the medievalist Jacques le Goff emphasizes that relics were fought over, traded, stolen, and even fragmented, for even a fragment of a saint’s bone or garment still possessed an original power that resisted such fragmentation. Possessing relics made a church or a city a destination for pilgrimages, and it was believed above all that they would provide divine protection to those who possessed them. According to le Goff: “The relics of the saints were, in the Middle Ages, the object of fervent worship. Although criticism of ‘false’ relics had long been established within the Church—at least since the end of the 11th century—belief in the virtue of the ‘true’ ones remained fervent and widespread, regardless of social class or level of education. They healed. Their power was manifested through touching the tomb or the reliquary that contained them.”

Relic as an index

The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) proposed a classification of modes of representation that helps us understand how relics convey meaning. He speaks of three modes of representation that serve as the raw material of our thought, since thought always occurs through representations. These are: the icon, the symbol, and the index. The icon retains a visual resemblance; this is the case with a drawing of a lion that refers to a lion because it resembles it in certain distinctive features, such as the mane. A symbol would be the word “lion,” which is a convention; only those who know the language—English, in this case—know that it refers to the feline. An index would be a paw print in the sand on the savanna. It has a physical connection to the animal, and a zoologist, for example, would be able to make the connection between the two.

Below are the definitions provided by Peirce himself in his 1894 essay “What Is a Sign ”:

• Likeness or Icon – Icon: The icon has no dynamic connection to the object it represents; it simply happens that its qualities resemble those of the object and evoke analogous sensations in our mind because of this resemblance to the object, but it remains unconnected to it.
• Index – Index: The index is physically connected to its object; they form an organic pair. But the interpretive mind has nothing to do with this connection, except to perceive it once it is established.
• Symbol: It is connected to the object by virtue of the mind’s [conventional] conception of its use; without this, the connection would not exist.

When considering relics in light of this classification and organization of representational mechanisms, it is possible to establish an increasing degree of proximity between the representative and the represented. The symbol is human; it is merely conventional. The icon comes closer by imitating the appearance of what it represents. It takes into account its form and its existence. The index already has a direct relationship, as was the case with the bones, the blood of the sacred figure, or the lion’s paw print. The relic, though metonymic, connects to the sacred through a physical and real channel.

It is interesting to use these concepts because they allow us to draw a sharp distinction between painting and photography. While painting, as a mode of representation, is restricted to the realm of the icon—operating through resemblance—photography is an icon for the same reason, but it is also an index; it maintains a physical, organic relationship with what it refers to. It is at this point that a portrait approaches the concept and can function as a relic.

Peirce himself, who, coincidentally, was born in the same year that photography was invented—1839—notes, still in his 1894 text, this dual function: “Photographs, especially instantaneous photographs, are very instructive, for we know that in certain respects they are exactly like the objects they represent. But this similarity is due to the fact that the photograph was produced under certain circumstances that physically compel it to correspond point by point to reality. In this respect, then, they belong to the second class of signs, those by physical connection [the index].”

The Founding Myth of Painting

It is very revealing that the myth establishing the origin of painting is framed by linking it to Charles Peirce’s concept of the index. This creates the irony that the founding myth of painting actually describes a conception that is more characteristic of the photographic image.

Pliny the Elder (23–79), in his *Natural History*, recounts myths from ancient Greek tradition. These myths were not considered fictional; they were historical facts explaining the origin of things. He recounts that a young woman named Dibutades was in love with a shepherd who was about to set out on a long journey. Unwilling to accept the separation, she thought of a way to preserve the memory (or presence) of her beloved. She then traced a line on a wall, following the shadow cast by his profile. This marked the birth of painting—the first image created by human hands, from which all others are derived.

What this myth illustrates is the desire for an image, in certain cases, to function as a relic—for it to have that indexical, physical link, as Charles Peirce defined it, with what it represents. There need be nothing “artistic” about Dibutades’s image—not in the sense that the art of painting would later take on. It is not a matter of his talent, technical mastery, or expressiveness as an “artist.” Her portrait is not a creation—it is merely a copy, a tracing. His role was that of a mechanical record, visually faithful just as photography would later be. What Dibutades produced was a memento of her beloved, just as she might have kept a handkerchief, a button, a note—one of those objects of which the literature of romance and separations offers a vast array of examples, and which are also mementos of the beloved.

Representation and Reality

It is relatively common in books or movies with plots set in ancient times for superstitions and beliefs to be portrayed through the idea that a representation has a direct connection to what it represents. I’m thinking of the voodoo doll—perhaps the most famous example of this concept—which, once mistreated, will cause the person it represents to also suffer, fall ill, and even die.

The archetypal example comes from the bison in the Altamira caves. Many of these painted animals bear deep gouges, chip marks, and impact points directly on their flanks—caused by spears with flint tips, stones, or wooden weapons wielded by hunters of the Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures 20,000 years ago. Paleolithic hunters believed that by attacking the animals painted on the cave walls, they were preparing for or influencing the hunt for real bison.

There are countless examples of this type of practice that have been collected by European travelers from the four corners of the world. The Englishman Sir James George Frazer categorized these occurrences into a logical framework, grouping them under the key concept of “magic.” The general term is “sympathetic magic,” which is subdivided into “homeopathic magic” (the law of similitude) and “contagious magic” (the law of contact), as shown in the diagram below, taken from his book The Golden Bough.

Magic by similarity applies to images in general as icons in Charles Peirce’s theory; magic by contact applies to relics as indexical forms, still according to Peirce. Photography appears in both branches because it preserves similarity and is, at the same time, the impression of light reflected by the person portrayed, a fact that establishes a concrete connection. The umbrella term “magic” here refers to the belief that what happens to the representation somehow influences the represented subject, and vice versa.

Frazer did not conduct fieldwork; he gathered his examples from British libraries based on travelers’ notes, some of whom were better prepared than others to engage in anthropology. For this reason, this empirical aspect of his work is now considered highly suspect. He himself, in his writings, holds an evidently prejudiced view: “In short, magic is a spurious system of natural laws as well as a fallacious guide to conduct; it is a false science as well as a abortive art […] the very idea of science did not exist in those underdeveloped minds.”

Through his work, he sought to chart an epic journey of the human mind—beginning with obscure magical beliefs found among underdeveloped peoples, moving on to the major monotheistic religions, and finally arriving at the natural sciences as the only reliable sources of knowledge to guide our lives.

Although Sir James George Frazer’s Victorian evolutionary theories, set forth in The Golden Bough, have long been discredited by modern anthropology, his classification of “Sympathetic Magic” remains a fundamental tool for cognitive psychology. Frazer identified the Law of Similarity (the double) and the Law of Contagion (the relic of contact). What he failed to realize was that these were not primitive stages of human history that science would eventually erase—they are part of the permanent structure of human emotions.

This was a major insight into cognitive psychology: realizing that we, too—even though we consider ourselves highly evolved in a number of areas—are just as subject to the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contagion as our ancestors at Altamira.

Just images?

How do the principles that governed—or still govern—magical practices manifest themselves today? We haven’t gone so far as to make voodoo dolls of our enemies. But studies in psychology (Bruce Hood— SuperSense: From Superstition to Religion—the Brain Science of Belief) show that our reactions to images are beyond our rational control. We can say that in cases where there is an emotional connection to the thing being represented (as is typically the case with portraits), we activate a different cognitive mode; we treat the thing as something it objectively is not, and we are unable to refrain from reacting emotionally to its presence. This happens regardless of the type of symbolic representation—whether iconic or indexical.

It is not something that is acquired; it is not cultural; it is part of how our brains work to confuse representations—which are invariably subject to interpretation—with the objective world. When an observer looks at a portrait and feels that harming or caressing the image is the same as harming or caressing the person, he is not merely performing a learned cultural ritual; as religious practice might suggest—since it is culturally transmitted—but is succumbing to a deeply ingrained cognitive reflex.

Nor is this a defect or flaw in our critical judgment; it can be seen more as our ability to project meanings based on our perceptions, even if these contradict or do not correspond to objective experience.

I bought this carte de visite at the Bièvres fair, near Paris. I was quickly flipping through a stack of CDVs, but this one made me stop: why did they do this to this woman? Could she be the mother? No, she probably isn’t—she’s dressed very simply compared to the child. No jewelry, and a drab dress. Besides, her hands are strong and look like they belong to someone who works with them. She must be a nanny. But why did someone scrape her face and then paint over it? What did this person feel when doing that? Is there any human being who wouldn’t feel at least a slight unease looking at an image like this?

The Light

In the 19th century, the nature of light was the subject of intense debate. It was even a politicized debate: while the monarchists defended Newton’s particle theory of light, the republicans championed the wave theory of light. Just as a point of interest, François Arago, Daguerre’s great supporter, favored the wave theory and also backed Fresnel, who made significant progress in that direction. But what interests us here is a much older interpretation, one that still resonated in the early days of photography.

In ancient Greece, before a theory linking the concept of light to that of vision emerged, it was suggested that our ability to see was due to the fact that our eyes emit something like tentacles of fire that encounter objects and bring their shapes and colors back to our eyes. This was the theory of Plato (428–347). Later, the Roman Lucretius reversed the direction and posited that it is objects themselves that emit layers—replicas of themselves—which reach our eyes and enable us to see.

Although these theories were supplanted by another—one that was easier to reconcile with the facts—proposed by the Arab Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham, c. 965 – c. 1040), in which light is an independent phenomenon and our eyes are thus viewed as passive receptors, the idea of emanations remained alive.

In his book Quand j’étais photographe (*When I Was a Photographer*), Nadar recounts Honoré de Balzac’s fear of the daguerreotype: “Thus, according to Balzac, every body in nature is composed of a series of spectra, in infinitely superimposed layers, arranged in infinitesimally thin films, in all the directions in which optics perceives that body. Since man, on his own, is incapable of creating—that is, of transforming an apparition, something intangible, into something solid, or of creating something out of nothing— each Daguerreotype process thus came to seize, highlighting and retaining, upon execution, one of the layers of the object’s body.”

For Balzac, therefore, each photograph entailed a real loss of one of these spectres that was imprinted on the plate. This illustrates how light—and consequently the photographic process as a whole—was not, for the public of that time (perhaps with the exception of scientists), something so materialistic and devoid of connections to the esoteric theories that were so in vogue at the time.

The photographer himself and his workspace—with chemical reagents, laboratory equipment, glassware, and inverted images on a ground-glass plate—were easily associated with the practices of alchemists in search of the philosopher’s stone. It would still be some time before photography became a commodity, sold in specialty stores and within the reach of any ordinary person.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

All these aspects of the photographic image are simply brought together in a single letter. On December 7, 1843—just four years after the daguerreotype was announced—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861), an English poet who was already famous during her lifetime, wrote to her friend Mary Russell Mitford to comment on and condemn a duel between two brothers-in-law that ended in the death of one of them. At the end of the letter, she changes the subject entirely and adds a postscript that is worth quoting in its entirety:

It is a paragraph that sums up the entire sentiment that this new “technology” inspired in its contemporaries. I put “technology” in quotes because when she compares it to the “mesmeric dematerialization of spirits,” this suggests that she places the daguerreotype alongside supernatural phenomena or pseudosciences. The understanding of electrical and magnetic phenomena, telegraphic transmission, as well as photographic recording—among other phenomena and applications that would later align with scientific and technological materialism—were, in those years, intertwined with phrenology (the materialization of the soul), mesmerism (animal magnetism), clairvoyance, somnambulism, and a host of other studies that attempted a scientific approach but fell by the wayside because they failed to produce satisfactory theoretical models.

But the most striking point in her description of the daguerreotype is when she says, “the fact that the person’s very shadow is fixed there forever!” It is in this essential fact of photography’s nature that its ability to function as a relic lies—to activate our innate and uncontrollable “sympathetic magic,” as Frazer called it—and that causes us, in some way, to treat the representation as the thing represented. This is the point at which it breaks away from and goes beyond the image an artist could produce. That is why Browning firmly declares, “I would rather have such a memento of someone I loved deeply than the noblest work an artist has ever produced.”

It is very interesting to observe, in the words of a poet—someone with a keener sensibility and the ability to express it verbally—a conceptual potential in full swing. Browning perfectly understands the power that an indexical representation adds to an image, to the point of making it an object of affection in its own right.

A Third Way in Photography

It is very common in studies of photography from its early decades that images are grouped and understood in just two basic categories: one documentary and the other pictorial. The former is intended as a visual record for a more descriptive or denotative use of the subject photographed, while the latter invites a more poetic or metaphorical interpretation. It is also common to associate the daguerreotype with the more documentary side and the negative/positive processes on paper with the pictorial side.

Recognizing the possibility of photography as a relic, as an object of affection—in which its documentary or pictorial qualities may indeed be present but take a back seat—opens up a very important third avenue for understanding what amateur or vernacular photography would come to be in the 20th century.

Returning to what Ernest Lacan proposed in the 1850s as the three types of photographers—the commercial photographer, the artist, and the amateur—the first being the mass-production portraitist, so looked down upon by his bold colleagues in the new art, was first and foremost a producer of mementos for a very broad audience that perfectly understood this vocation of photography, which, in its humblest form, could still surpass “the noblest work an artist has ever produced,” in the words of Elizabeth Browning.

Photography did not replace portrait painting, the second rank in painting hierarchy. Large-format portraits served a different purpose, being rather statements of power, status, and lineage, often incorporating allegories and a well-articulated iconography. If we want to find out where painting was challenged by photography, we have to look at the faithful, small, and intimate images, kept in small cases or frames luxuriously decorated with velvet and gilding, we have consider the miniatures. These, as paintings, were indeed intended to serve as family heirlooms, and for this reason they were supplanted by photography due to its inherent superiority—namely, the fact that “the person’s very shadow is fixed there forever!”

It was not uncommon for the intent behind miniature portraits to become evident when, for example, a lock of the subject’s hair was added to the back of the painting. This technique was also used in photography. This is the common ground and the objective in both cases. Hair, handkerchiefs, letters, baby shoes, the bride’s dress, jewelry, and other objects serve as mementos in a deeper sense than mere references; our minds are able to project onto these objects something of the tangible presence of our loved one.

The concept of a relic is very similar to that of a fetish. In both cases, the object is something more; it is imbued with the power to evoke or even influence something external to it. The fundamental difference is that a relic always has an indexical character—it must always have a physical connection to what it embodies—whereas a fetish can be something manufactured and lacking such a connection.

Daguerreotypes and, later, cartes de visite served, first and foremost, this purpose. Photographers working in this branch of photography were, in fact, more commercially oriented. They were entirely different from the dukes and magistrates who sought refined leisure, as Lacan mentioned. They were also entirely different from the artists whose interest was focused on photographic technique or aesthetics. They were more like small independent entrepreneurs seeking to make a good profit from the new technology. Some ran large studios—the “galleries,” as they were called in the United States—while others traveled from city to city, from town to town, making do with the bare minimum necessary to deliver a “likeness” captured in daylight to their occasional clients. In addition to daguerreotypes and cartes de visite, ambrotypes—and even more so, ferrotypes—were well-suited to this market of fairs, popular events, and tourist attractions. In these places, they mingled with magicians, fortune-tellers, conjurers, and jugglers.

A new kind of amateur photographer

With the development of dry plates—glass plates coated with a gelatin-based emulsion that were much more sensitive than wet plates—the production of photographic media shifted from artisanal methods to industrial production.

In the optical industry, the development of general-purpose lenses—with a medium angle of view, a reasonable aperture of around f/8, and acceptable sharpness across the entire field— —the so-called Aplanats or Rapid Rectilinears—made it possible to develop cameras with dedicated lenses and viewfinders adapted to those lenses. This paved the way for instant photography, without a tripod or the traditional black cloth.

But the significance of these innovations only reached its full potential when George Eastman, with his Kodak No. 1, began offering developing and printing services, opening the door to a new kind of amateur: the average person, the weekend photographer—someone who had no interest whatsoever in learning the intricacies of photographic technique, but only in pressing the button. “You press the button, we do the rest.”

This new photographer, equipped with a Kodak or one of the many similar cameras that were appearing on the market, was able to capture family moments in a multitude of situations that no professional could keep up with. He was like a journalist who was right on the scene the very moment events unfolded. Did the photos turn out well? No, they didn’t—and that’s the most interesting part of all. The 1888 Kodak No. 1 was better than the 1901 Brownie No. 2 and than most Kodaks from the early 1900s. The former used a periscopic-type lens, which consists of two symmetrical menisci, while the latter was produced with a single meniscus.

Whether consciously or not, George Eastman realized that in this type of photography, the indexical aspect (physical relationship) was far more important than the iconic aspect (visual accuracy). He understood that a mother who takes a photo of her son on a Sunday afternoon does not spend time examining the corners of the frame in search of spherical aberration or barrel distortion. What matters to her is that the photo conveys the existential assurance of that connection: this is my son.

With this strategic shift, Eastman managed to go from $25 for the Kodak No. 1 to $2 for the Kodak Brownie No. 2, betting that the loss in quality would not diminish the appeal of its product. The vast majority of casual photographers didn’t want to pay more, nor did they want to learn more, just to get a sharper image; their concerns weren’t about aesthetics or precision, and they weren’t interested in documentary or pictorial photography. For them, photography was, first and foremost, a keepsake. Receiving a slightly blurry image from the lab, with dark shadows and washed-out highlights, was not a problem, because that was still the light that had reflected off the faces and bodies of their loved ones on that special day—and it was they themselves who had captured that magical moment forever.

It’s almost funny how this horde of totally unprepared, totally disinterested photographers annoyed those who, though also amateurs, took photography very seriously. None other than Alfred Stieglitz, in an article published in November 1899 in Scribner’s Magazine, expressed concern about the growing deterioration of the term “amateur.” It’s worth quoting at length: “Allow me to draw attention to one of the most universally popular misconceptions regarding photography: classifying supposedly excellent works as professional and using the term ‘amateur’ to convey the idea of immature productions and to justify terribly bad photographs. In fact, almost all the best works are, and always have been, created by those who pursue photography out of love and not merely for financial reasons.” (From Beaumont Newhall Photography: Essays & Images). Now, the new amateurs also photographed out of love, but it was a love for the subjects and not for photography itself.

Conclusion

It was with a certain sense of provocation that I used the term “relic” to define a specific role of images, and of photography in particular. The juxtaposition of the religious with a mechanical process creates an interesting tension, for although they may be likened to one another, there is certainly a fundamental difference between them. In religion, the term “relic” refers to a higher order; it invokes another world beyond our own, in whose name it confers powers upon the relics of the saints. We do not normally associate such powers with photography. But under certain circumstances, its indexical nature catalyses a reaction that allows viewers to touch the images as if they were touching the person depicted, enabling us to anthropomorphize the object. It may be an act of tenderness or aggression; it may be a smile, a sigh, or a cry—but the person allows this fantasy to take flight and savors it. Every photograph is, in a way, a shroud.

When it comes to identifying an image with the person it represents, believing in something that doesn’t make sense isn’t always a flaw, nor is it a sign of ignorance or backwardness; rather, it is a cognitive ability through which we are able to attribute a sense of reality to a representation. The total suppression of such a capacity—or a purported refusal to use this resource—seems to me impossible, beyond the control even of the most rational minds. Its unchecked excess can lead to delusion; it can even be harmful and dangerous. I would say there is a range that we could call healthy in its moderation. But I’ll stop here, since this was an essay on photography, and if I continue, I realize I’ll be venturing into the realm of self-help books.

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