114 Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art

The caption beneath this 1862 lithograph by French caricature artist Honoré Daumier reads "Nadar elevating Photography to the elevation of Art." The impress comically typecasts Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (known as Nadar) every bit a mad scientist or absent professor figure who—in his excitement to capture the perfect shot—is unwittingly nearly to lose his top hat. Below him, inscribed on every building in Paris, is the discussion "Photographie." In many ways, this satirical depiction of ane of the most prominent photographers in Paris works to capture the essence of the 19^th century debate over whether or not this new medium of photography could be considered "art." At the time this print appeared in the periodical Le Boulevard, Nadar was already well known for taking the starting time aerial photograph of Paris 4 years earlier in 1858. He too "had a flair for showmanship, and was much in the public eye equally a balloonist" (Gernsheim 57). When Nadar after came out with a popular series of aerial photographs, Daumier seized the opportunity "to mock at Nadar'south claims of raising photography to the pinnacle of art" (Gernsheim 58).

Every bit a comical even so serious critique on the new medium of photography, Daumier'due south print illustrates some of the tensions between immediacy, hypermediacy, and remediation put forth by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin in Remediation. "Photography," they write, "provides an important example of the social debate that can environs the logics of immediacy and hypermediacy" (Bolter and Grusin 72). However far from being something entirely "new," they debate, photography was just a remediation of painting, a "mechanical and chemical process, whose automatic grapheme seemed to many to consummate the earlier trend to conceal both the procedure and the artist" (Bolter and Grusin 25). Nevertheless, as evidenced by Daumier's sarcastic take on both the literal and figurative "top" of photography, the contend over whether or not photography went "too far" by eliminating the artist birthday was indeed a lively one (Bolter and Grusin 25). Furthermore, if the logic of immediacy is that "the medium itself should disappear and leave usa in the presence of the thing represented," Daumier'southward selection to repeatedly inscribe the word "Photographie" on the buildings below Nadar tin can be read equally a deliberate endeavour to remind and/or warn viewers of the notwithstanding-mediated nature of photography (Bolter and Grusin vi). In this respect, Daumier's hypermediated print cautions its audiences not to be seduced by the lensman'southward false claims of achieving transparency.

Yet across the familiar photography-as-art debate, when understood historically, perhaps "Nadar elevating Photography to the height of Art" expresses some wider political anxieties over the accelerated growth, industrialization, and resultant cultural changes characteristic of modern French club in the 19^thursday century. Actualization at the early stages of what Anthony Giddens terms "an epoch of 'radicalised modernity,'" Daumier'southward print tin be viewed as a comment on the shifting roles of journalism and the press (Webster 203). Given the precipitous and explicit political nature of Daumier'southward other work (e.1000. Rue Transnonain, which gruesomely depicts a family of silk weavers slaughtered in their beds by the French National Guard), information technology seems reasonable to assume "Nadar elevating Photography to the tiptop of Art" besides has political undertones. In fact, it is non surprising that this impress appeared during an era marked by what Jürgen Habermas described as "the structural transformation of the press" (Habermas 186). This particular age, Habermas argues, saw a shift away from a journalism of "individual men of messages" toward a commercialized, commodified mass media (Habermas 188). Daumier's selection to ridicule the "elevation" of a new and highly sensationalized medium shows that he was both sensitive to and critical of the "new" journalistic directions signified by Nadar's successes. While perhaps primarily comical, this impress suggests its artist was far from comfortable with the advent of what Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno would later term the "culture manufacture."

Finally, a particularly chilling aspect of Daumier'southward lithograph is the way in which it foreshadows a modern surveillance society. There is something implicitly intrusive nigh a man with a camera flying in a balloon higher up the streets of Paris, and this impress succeeds in capturing that sentiment. Still even more explicit is the fact that Nadar'due south balloon was repurposed for military use during the 1870 Siege of Paris. In fact, the photographer himself even commanded an "observation balloon corps" (Gernsheim 58). In this respect, "Nadar elevating Photography to the height of Fine art" tin can be viewed as an anticipation of Foucault'due south metaphor for modernistic society as a "Panopticon" (Webster 223). In any case, like virtually good comedy, this initially humorous lithograph certainly has a more serious side, particularly when viewed in the context of Remediation, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, and Theories of the Data Society.

Works Cited

Bolter, David J. and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Printing. 2000. Print.

Daumier, Honoré. "Nadar elevating Photography to the peak of Art." 1862 lithograph. Google Images. Web. 26 September 2012.

Gernsheim, Helmut . A Concise History of Photography. New York: Dover Publications. 1986. Print.

Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Thomas Burger. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 1989. Print.

Webster, Frank.Theories of the Information Society.  3^rd Ed. London: Routledge. 2006.  Print.

mullinssubbillson.blogspot.com

Source: https://thepoliticsofinformation.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/a-serious-comedian-honore-daumiers-critique-of-photography-and-modern-society/

Share this post