Capturing the Light by Roger Watson

Author:Roger Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Chapter Eighteen

THE ACADÉMIE DES SCIENCES, AUGUST 1839

At a joint meeting of the Académie des Sciences and the Académie des Beaux-Arts held at the Institut de France on 19 August, Daguerre and Niépce took their place on the dais alongside Arago. In addition to the membership of the two Academies, every notable scientist, artist and literary figure who found themselves in Paris that day crammed into the chamber to hear the formal announcement. Hundreds more clambered up the walls outside, trying to get a look in; well before the designated time, all the important and famous dignitaries of the artistic and scientific world had been unceremoniously squeezed in closely together on the hard benches and into every available inch of standing room too. Many more were left outside in the courtyard, straining to hear. The atmosphere was extraordinary, recalled a German visitor, Ludwig Pfau, who was there that day. ‘The crowd was like an electric battery sending out a stream of sparks,’ he wrote. ‘There was as much excitement as after a victorious battle … Truly a victory – greater than any bloody one had been won; a victory of science … In the kingdom of unending progress another frontier had fallen.’1

Much to the surprise and consternation of those gathered inside the academy, it was not the now celebrated Louis Daguerre who rose to his feet to explain his process, but Arago who addressed the assembled crowd. He apologized for this unexpected substitution for Daguerre, explaining that ‘This morning, even, I begged – I entreated the able artist to yield to a wish which I well know is universal; but a bad sore throat, fear of not being able to make himself understood without the aid of illustrations – in short, a little nervousness – proved obstacles which I have not been fortunate enough to overcome.’2

What, Louis Daguerre nervous? The consummate showman, overcome with stage fright? This is yet another imponderable that has left photographic historians scratching their heads. It may be that Daguerre, finally forced to get up in front of an audience of his peers and explain his method to the leading lights of the scientific and artistic world, doubted his ability to do so coherently. He may in particular have been acutely aware of his lack of formal scientific training and feared that questions would be asked that he either couldn’t answer or perhaps didn’t even understand.

Whatever the reason, Arago took it upon himself to explain the process and the events leading up to its discovery, but having stepped into the breach without prepared notes, he managed to make the Daguerreotype process sound a great deal more complicated than it really was, straying off onto points of scientific minutiae that would certainly have left the artists in the audience wondering if this process was an art form at all or rather a branch of physics and chemistry. To make matters worse, he extolled the work of Daguerre at the expense of Nicéphore Niépce, informing the audience that Niépce’s

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