1.3. The contemporaneous discourse 
on the daguerreotype

As one can easily imagine, the advent of photography had a great impact on the arts and sciences. Painters, writers, scientists, physicians and philosophers were challenged by this new medium, which presented them with previously unthinkable possibilities. Especially painters had to rethink the basic assumptions of their art. Those who saw their raison d'etre in the exact reproduction of nature suddenly were confronted with a mechanism more perfect than any painting technique they could ever dream of. For Morse, the daguerreotype was superior to all art: "The impressions of interior views are Rembrandt perfected." [10] Immediately after Daguerre's publication of his great secret, a lively discourse on those provocative pictures commenced because, the "daguerreotype was not just an invention, it was an intervention into ways of seeing and being." [11] 
Two main evaluations concerning the daguerreotype are discernable in Hawthorne's time. One positive view held photography to be a medium of absolute truth; the negative estimation saw demonic powers at work in this strange apparatus. As we will see, both views are closely connected: one is merely the flipside of the other. Both are alike in that they view the outcome of any daguerreotype to be completely independent of human agency. The first position stressed the purely mechanical connection between what was in front of the camera and the ensuing image on the plate. The photographer was thought to have no bearing on this connection: "[W]hat is most interesting about the early attitudes toward photography [...] is their almost uniform failure to regard the photographer as an active participant in, and shaper of, procedures and events." [12] The other position saw daguerreotypes as the work of ghosts, wizards and devils, who only outwardly looked human.
Niépces first "heliograph" Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce
 

The view that daguerreotypes were objective reproductions of nature brought about without any human meddling can be derived from the language surrounding the new medium. The first appellations of photographic images indicate that they are imprints of nature itself: Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce, a precursor of Daguerre's, called his pictures "heliographies" (i.e. sun-writings); Daguerre referred to his daguerreotypes as "sun pictures"; the English inventor William Fox Talbot named his first book of photographies "The Pencil of Nature"; and François Gouraud summarized the photographic process with the words, "Nature impresses an image of herself". This terminology beholds the sun rather than the photographer as the driving agency behind the pictures. Photographs were commonly understood to be facts without perceiving subjects - and therefore without any distortion or lies. 
   This terminology is also present in The House of the Seven Gables. Holgrave constantly associates his occupation with the sun: "I misuse Heaven's blessed sunshine by tracing out human features, through its agency." (46) "I make pictures out of sunshine". (91) "I will seize the purest ray of sunshine, and make a picture of the flower and its wearer." (94) Whenever Holgrave speaks of his profession, he does so by stressing the importance of the sun and playing down his own role. It is this association with the sun which causes him to believe in the absolute truthfulness of his pictures: 

There is a wonderful insight in heaven's broad and simple sunshine. While we give it credit only for depicting the merest surface, it actually brings out the secret character with a truth that no painter would venture upon, even could he detect it." (91)
   This quote illustrates two things: first, that daguerreotypes were indeed viewed in competition with paintings, which they surpassed ("Rembrandt perfected"); second, that they were not only truthful to the surface but also to the essence or the "secret character" of an object. Today it is a cliché of photographic lore that members of some "primitive" cultures are afraid of cameras because they think it capable of captivating their soul. 150 years ago this belief was widely spread in Europe and America. Many people thought that what was captured on the plate was not only light, but some spiritual part of the photographed person, be it their soul or their hidden character. 
   From this notion it is only a short step to a demonic understanding of daguerreotypes: what if those plates not only depicted the soul of a person but actually captivated it? What if the photographer was a kind of mesmerizing wizard who violated the will and being of his model to gain control over him? The connection between daguerreotypes and wizardry is also suggested because of the outward appearance of the photographic procedure. The use of precious metals and fuming chemicals reinforced associations with alchemy. Many people understood the daguerreotype to be the machine-age equivalent of the elixir of life. Other "demonic" features of the daguerreotype were already mentioned: the simultaneity of positive and negative image lead to the impression of a skull visible beneath the skin; postmortems and ghost towns reinforced the belief that one of photography's most important uses would be the documentation of paranormal phenomena. 
There were other objections from a more powerful source: the church. All of a sudden God had a mighty competitor in rendering men in his own likeness, thus the hierarchy on which especially the catholic church rested was threatened. Cathy N. Davidson cites a theological statement which is characteristic of this time: 
The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible [...] but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no man-made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that God should have abandoned His eternal principles, and allowed a Frenchman in Paris to give the world an invention of the devil? [13]
   This demonic aspect of daguerreotyping can also be easily found in Hawthorne's novel. After all, Holgrave is a Maule and thus has the blood of wizards in his veins. Towards the end of the novel Holgrave mockingly admits to his demonic ancestry: "[I]n this long drama of wrong and retribution, I represent the old wizard, and am probably as much of a wizard as ever he [Matthew Maule] was." (316) But as we will see, there may be even darker sides to Holgrave and his ambiguous profession.

 
 
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