Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art Khan

The caption beneath this 1862 lithograph by French caricature artist Honoré Daumier reads "Nadar elevating Photography to the height of Fine art." The impress comically typecasts Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (known every bit Nadar) as a mad scientist or absent-minded professor figure who—in his excitement to capture the perfect shot—is unwittingly most to lose his top hat. Below him, inscribed on every edifice in Paris, is the give-and-take "Photographie." In many ways, this satirical depiction of one 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 journal Le Boulevard, Nadar was already well known for taking the first aerial photograph of Paris four years before in 1858. He likewise "had a flair for showmanship, and was much in the public eye as a balloonist" (Gernsheim 57). When Nadar afterward came out with a pop series of aerial photographs, Daumier seized the opportunity "to mock at Nadar's claims of raising photography to the height of art" (Gernsheim 58).

Equally a comical all the same serious critique on the new medium of photography, Daumier's impress 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 argue that can environs the logics of immediacy and hypermediacy" (Bolter and Grusin 72). Yet far from being something entirely "new," they contend, photography was merely a remediation of painting, a "mechanical and chemical process, whose automated character seemed to many to complete the before trend to conceal both the process and the creative person" (Bolter and Grusin 25). Nonetheless, as evidenced past Daumier'southward sarcastic take on both the literal and figurative "elevation" of photography, the debate over whether or non photography went "besides far" past eliminating the artist altogether was indeed a lively 1 (Bolter and Grusin 25). Furthermore, if the logic of immediacy is that "the medium itself should disappear and leave us in the presence of the affair represented," Daumier's choice to repeatedly inscribe the discussion "Photographie" on the buildings below Nadar tin can be read as a deliberate attempt 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 photographer'south false claims of achieving transparency.

Yet beyond the familiar photography-equally-fine art debate, when understood historically, perhaps "Nadar elevating Photography to the acme of Fine art" expresses some wider political anxieties over the accelerated growth, industrialization, and resultant cultural changes characteristic of modern French social club in the 19^th century. Actualization at the early stages of what Anthony Giddens terms "an epoch of 'radicalised modernity,'" Daumier's print can be viewed as a comment on the shifting roles of journalism and the press (Webster 203). Given the abrupt and explicit political nature of Daumier's other work (e.g. Rue Transnonain, which gruesomely depicts a family unit of silk weavers slaughtered in their beds by the French National Guard), it seems reasonable to assume "Nadar elevating Photography to the height of Fine art" as well has political undertones. In fact, it is non surprising that this print appeared during an era marked past what Jürgen Habermas described as "the structural transformation of the press" (Habermas 186). This item historic period, Habermas argues, saw a shift away from a journalism of "private men of letters" toward a commercialized, commodified mass media (Habermas 188). Daumier's option to ridicule the "tiptop" 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 print suggests its artist was far from comfy with the appearance of what Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno would later term the "culture industry."

Finally, a specially chilling aspect of Daumier's lithograph is the mode in which it foreshadows a modern surveillance order. There is something implicitly intrusive about a man with a camera flight in a balloon above the streets of Paris, and this print succeeds in capturing that sentiment. Yet fifty-fifty more explicit is the fact that Nadar's balloon was repurposed for military machine use during the 1870 Siege of Paris. In fact, the photographer himself fifty-fifty commanded an "ascertainment balloon corps" (Gernsheim 58). In this respect, "Nadar elevating Photography to the height of Art" can exist viewed as an apprehension of Foucault's metaphor for mod society as a "Panopticon" (Webster 223). In any case, like near good comedy, this initially humorous lithograph certainly has a more serious side, specially when viewed in the context of Remediation, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, and Theories of the Information Society.

Works Cited

Bolter, David J. and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Agreement New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 2000. Impress.

Daumier, Honoré. "Nadar elevating Photography to the height 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 Conservative Club. Trans. Thomas Burger. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 1989. Print.

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

schaefersakis1990.blogspot.com

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

Share this post