Highest intelligences - Sagacious minds - and Fools!

[William W]

Glenn, you are most welcome and my investigation was fun - and I got to share a couple of beers with a beautifully crafted, witty and most intelligent French Woman - tough work, but someone had to do it.

[ajohnw]

The English language is a good example of how important context can be. Another aspect. Take a mostly North American term ship. In the UK the term post is more likely to be used. Some one who doesn't speak English or is learning it might conclude that ship means that something is being transported in a boat. Good luck to them with post as it's even a computing term. This sort of thing and word order explains why google translate can come up with some rather strange things at times when translating any language

John
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[Kodiak]

Kodiak would know this - the French he learned in Quebec came from northeast France in the 1600's(?), and it's quite different from the language currently spoken in France.

True, the Nouvelle France started with the same language as the metropolitan
French. The same applies to all colonial territories: Australia, NZ and the US
for that matter. With time, colonial languages, being isolated, took some other
directions than the metropolitan's in some or many but not in every ways.

One should not confuse French with French or English with English… there are
new "colours" but "rouge" and "red" are the same everywhere. Spoken with
other colours maybe but recognizable by all!

[Mike Buckley]

tough work, but someone had to do it.

Thanks also from me for taking one for the team.

[Kodiak]

“application” translates loosely today to mean ‘the result of’ – in other words ‘the [final] photograph’ and not 'the making of the photograph’

Not exactly Bill!

More in the sense applying, exercising an art form is to be read here.

— Wiki: The term is applied in distinction to the fine arts which aims to
produce objects which are beautiful and/or provide intellectual stimulation.
In practice, the two often overlap. —

[Glenn NK]

True, the Nouvelle France started with the same language as the metropolitan
French. The same applies to all colonial territories: Australia, NZ and the US
for that matter. With time, colonial languages, being isolated, took some other
directions than the metropolitan's in some or many but not in every ways.

One should not confuse French with French or English with English… there are
new "colours" but "rouge" and "red" are the same everywhere. Spoken with
other colours maybe but recognizable by all!

So true - in the US, many words are spelled differently than in the "colonies".

endeavour = endeavor, etc., etc. (the latter being the US spelling)

Daniel: my mistake - I should have said northwest France is where many or most came from. This is logical - they were close to seaports on the north and west of France (Normandy and Brittany), making travel much easier than from the eastern or southern parts of the country.

I have a friend whose wife's family originated in Normandy, immigrated to Quebec, and later moved to western Canada. They probably left from the port of Le Havre.

G

[ied]

Originally Posted by Mike Buckley
" (assuming the English translation is accurate)…'

Please, trust me on that one!

Oui, la traduction est precise.

Irene



Irene

[Kodiak]

Oui, la traduction est précise.

Merci Irène,

…dans cet océan tout en anglais, ton support linguistique me fait du bien! ;-)

[NorthernFocus]

I suspect what the gent was refering to is exactly what has transpired. Back then visual art was still mostly the realm of the well to do. Perhaps he meant that photography would make it available to everyone, i.e. even fools. Which is pretty much what has occured, particularly now with P/S cameras and more recently the phone camera.

[Loose Canon]

Perhaps he meant that photography would make it available to everyone, i.e. even fools. Which is pretty much what has occurred...

I am living proof!

[lukaswerth]

I agree.

> Firstly, I do 'trust' the translation made in the opening post.

> Secondly, I note that mid 19th Century French is NOT my native tongue.


So I do not want to argue about translations per se: but I did want to explore other possibilities, because, as mentioned already, the nuance of the intended meaning of the written word needs more analysis than just reading it.

So I ran this by a French Literature Scholar. . .

Arguably and depending upon the social class and education of the author, the last two lines probably was meant to mean closer to:

“un art qui aiguise les esprits les plus sagaces
et dont l’application est à la portée du dernier des imbecile”.


an art which sharpens the most acute minds
and the application is within the reach of the last of the fools.

“application” translates loosely today to mean ‘the result of’ – in other words ‘the [final] photograph’ and not 'the making of the photograph’

“fools” translates loosely today to mean ‘the less fortunate as to not have had education and social experience, but not necessarily of lesser mental capacity” – though in 19th France and elsewhere, there would have been a some in middle and upper classes who held a stigma that all ‘fools’ were all by definition - ‘stupid’.

In summary: it could have meant that Photography was a common language or communication device that, for the final product to be appreciated by the viewer, the viewer need NOT be well versed in the technicalities of it.

Also, with respect to the Author himself: a Secondary or maybe the Primary reason for the author scribing this was to simply reckon Photography (quite a new endeavour in 1857) as being an equal with other Art disciplines.

It is often important to understand the reason for a writing to best understand the nuance of the meaning of that writing.


WW

William,

I largely agree with your observations about this - interesting - quotation. Just to add a few historical points:
In 1857 Daguerreotype were, as far as I know, still very common, but they were being gradually replaced by Albumen prints, a photographic process which allowed different copies made from a negative.
But the days without photography were still very much within the living memory of most people who had witnessed its rise, a bit similar perhaps to the rise of the internet much more recently, but perhaps still much more radical. Photography also spread all over the world within a decade or so, with photo studios in the European colonies, like India, being opened in the 1840ties (by Indians!).
The 19th century was an age of industrialization, rationalism and of a belief in progress among the elites which approached religious quality. Photography spelled the promise of scientific recording of facts in a much faster and much more accurate way than painting and drawing ever were able to. Therefore the science in the quotation! Louis Daguerre encouraged his audience to inspect his daguerreotypes with a magnifying glass to inspect all the detail they were able to hold. This was, apart from the promotion by the French government, another big reason why daguerreotypes first superseded in their popularity the other processes which were invented at the same time, namely the calotype process of Henry Fox Talbot, even though he was able to make copies from negatives: his paper negatives were not able to hold as much detail.
Photography's possibilities was also investigated aesthetically from the very beginning, and the first profession it largely rendered redundant were portrait painters, many of whom nilly-willy opened photo studios. Remember also that art was still seen much more as a craft in those days, was much more about documentation, expression, enlightening - the slogan "l'art pour l'art" was still in the future, its huge impact in visual arts largely made possible by photography itself.
Science and art were seen at that time much more as parallels rather than opposites, both, if you like, academic occupations.
And photography could apparently reach everybody, even the most backward.

Lukas

[Mike Buckley]

Interesting perspective, Lukas. That makes sense.

In 1857 Daguerreotype were, as far as I know, still very common, but they were being gradually replaced by Albumen prints, a photographic process which allowed different copies made from a negative.

You're correct about both points. The books I've read about that indicate that the peak years of using the Daguerreotype process were about 1852-54 and the waning years were about 1856-60. The negatives that you mentioned were made of glass coated with materials sensitive to light.

This was, apart from the promotion by the French government, another big reason why daguerreotypes first superseded in their popularity the other processes which were invented at the same time, namely the calotype process of Henry Fox Talbot, even though he was able to make copies from negatives: his paper negatives were not able to hold as much detail.

I suspect that the biggest reason Talbot's process never achieved great adoption is that users had to pay for the process during what might have been its peak years. The Daguerreotype process was free to everyone except in England.

[Caddy]

this was a most interesting thread. thank you kodiak.

[Kodiak]

this was a most interesting thread. thank you kodiak.

Cool to read you had a good time!

[purplehaze]

•
[CENTER]"La photographie est une découverte merveilleuse,
une science qui occupe les intelligences les plus élevées,
un art qui aiguise les esprits les plus sagaces
et dont l’application est à la portée du dernier des imbéciles."
— Félix Tournachon, dit Nadar (1857)

I'm late to this thread, but as a native English speaker and professional French-English translator, I cannot not revise. (Forgive me, Daniel.)

"Photography is a marvelous discovery,
a science that occupies the highest intellects,
and an art that sharpens the most discerning minds,
the practice of which is within the reach of the greatest of fools."

I think you understood the writer perfectly, Daniel. And, yes, speaking as one of those fools, I would think the notion is even more true today than it would have been when it was first written.

[purplehaze]

In case there is still doubt about Nadar's meaning, here are a couple more quotes:

“The theory of photography can be taught in an hour; the technique in a day. What can’t be taught is the feeling for light; . . . it’s the understanding of this effect which requires artistic perception. What is taught even less is the immediate understanding of your subject . . . that enables you to make not just a dreary cardboard copy typical of the merest hack in a darkroom, but a likeness of the most intimate and happy kind.”

and

"In photography, like in all things, there are people who can see and others who cannot even look.”

Nadar was a pretty amazing guy: the first aerial photographer, the first to make successful photographs underground, an excellent portraitist, an inspiration for Jules Verne... His accomplishments are too numerous to list here, but there is a good overview on this blog, not to mention another translation of Daniel's quote above.

Thank you again, Daniel, for yet another introduction to a fascinating and supremely talented artist.