Impressionism and Photography

Author: Heilbrun, Francoise

Source: History of Photography, Volume 33, Number 1, February 2009 , pp. 18-25(8)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

This paper aims to show that vernacular photography contributed subtly to changing the manner in which Impressionist painters depicted landscape and the human figure. This new way of approaching reality can be discerned only for a very brief period in Impressionism, between 1865 and 1880, although signs of the impact of photography on painting are already to be seen in Daguerreotypes of the 1840s. The influence of photography becomes most striking after 1859, with the production of stereoscopic views of human figures on the boulevards and elsewhere. Painters never explicitly acknowledged these influences, however, and it may be that these influences were assimilated unconsciously in part. Cet essai veut montrer que la photographie, dans sa production la plus courante et la plus anonyme, a subtilement contribue a changer la facon dont les peintres impressionnistes traduisaient le paysage et la figure humaine. Cette nouvelle facon d'aborder la realite on ne peut l'observer dans la peinture impressionniste que pendant une tres courte periode entre 1865 et 1880, mais on en trouve deja des signes avant coureur deja dans certains daguerreotypes des annees 1840. Elles seront particulierement spectaculaires a partir de 1859 avec le traitement par la vue stereoscopique de la silhouette humaine sur les boulevards. Les peintres n'ont cependant jamais mentionne ces sources indiscutables dont l'action sur eux a peut etre ete en partie inconsciente.

Keywords: Edouard Baldus (1813-1894); Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884); Charles Marville (1816-1879); Charles Negre (1820-1880); Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936); Impressionism; stereoscopic views

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03087290802582889

Publication date: 2009-02-01