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Daguerre: The Artist
In Paris in 1839, when Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre announced the first practical photographic process to
the public, the fame of the daguerreotype eclipsed his magnificent career as a painter. It is difficult
to piece together his pre-photographic oeuvre. Only a handful of small works survive today, most of
them at George Eastman House. Until 1839 his reputation rested on his naturalistic stage designs
(1816-22) and Diorama paintings (1822-39), but most if not all of these were destroyed by fire before
his death in 1851. What is here is beyond value, and yet is only a pale reflection of the work that
made him famous.
His huge Diorama paintings were remarkable achievements of optical illusion. Shown to an audience
seated in a darkened auditorium in a specially designed building, each scenic picture was larger
in width than the Brackett Clark wing of the Museum. Each magically changed when carefully placed,
filtered light "decomposed" one or the other of several superimposed atmospheric or time-lapse
"effects" on the same canvas. Daguerre's genius dazzled connoisseur and public alike by combining
the tricks of art and science, of fantasy and reality. He and his associate, Charles-Marie Bouton,
received medals of the Legion of Honor when they exhibited small copies of Diorama subjects at the
Salon.
Daguerre was a key figure in the transformation from early nineteenth century Neo-Classic and
Romantic Art, to mid-nineteenth century Realism. He drew attention to landscape painting and documentary
work at a time when the Academy of Fine Arts favored history painting. A critically acclaimed
popular artist, he penetrated the barriers of tradition with the scientific, pre-photographic
temperament of his time. He foreshadowed Courbet, the Barbizon painters, Impressionism and
photography, and prepared the way for the movies that were to come.
Janet E. Buerger
Associate Curator, Photographic Collections
David Kwasigroh
VSW/RIT Intern
IMAGE • Volume 28 No. 2
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