1. The daguerreotype in
Hawthorne's time
On August 19, 1839 Louis Jaques Mandé Daguerre for the first time
publicly presented and explained a technology which instantly fascinated
the masses: the daguerreotype. On that day the building of the French Acadamy
of Sciences was beleagured by a huge crowd. Details and rumours about the
new invention had been previously making the round and now the secret was
to be revealed - the secret of the exact reproduction of nature. As that
secret was finally revealed, the masses eagerly seized upon it. An eyewitness,
Marc Antoine Gaudin, reported:
Wenige Tage später wurden die Geschäfte der Optiker
von Amateuren bestürmt, die nach Daguerreotyp-Apparaten lechzten,
und allerorten richtete man Kameras auf Gebäude. Jeder wollte den
Ausblick aus seinem Fenster festhalten [...] Kamine setzten ihn in Ekstase,
wieder und wieder zählte er die Dachziegel und die Kaminziegel und
staunte, daß gar der Mörtel zwischen den Ziegeln zu sehen war
[1]
It is the minute fidelity to details, the exactitude with which all objects
were reproduced, which so fascinated the people. The first amateur photographs
mainly depicted walls, streets, roofs, stable objects with identifiable
features which could be discovered on the daguerreotypes. With the new
apparatus anyone could become an artist, or even better - he could become
some kind of God, able to exactly reproduce the world.
"La daguerreotypomanie" spread quickly, by 1840 German,
British, Italian and American newspapers were already featuring ads offering
equipment and instruction. Daguerre's little treatise, Historique et
description du procédé du Daguerréotype et du Diorama,
in which he gave the full particulars of his invention, appeared in 30
different editions all over Europe. The world had waited for the new invention. |
