Charles Baudelaire, letter to his mother, Mme Aupick, December 23, 1865.
“I would like to have your portrait. It’s an idea that’s taken hold of me. There’s an excellent photographer in Le Havre. But I’m afraid it’s not possible now. I’d have to be there. You don’t know anything about it, and all photographers, even excellent ones, have ridiculous quirks; they take for a good image one in which all the warts, all the wrinkles, all the defects, all the trivialities of the face are made very visible, very exaggerated; the HARDER the image, the happier they are. What’s more, I’d like the face to be at least one or two inches long. Only in Paris [1] do they know how to do what I want, i.e. an exact portrait, but with the blur of a drawing. Well, we’ll think about it, won’t we?” These words from Charles Baudelaire’s letter to his mother are the first to appear in André Jammes’ excellent book “Nadar”, published by “Photo Poche”. Discovering them printed in this way at the beginning of the book, as if to underline their importance – I would almost say their gravity – touched me enormously.
Perhaps I’m too old…
I regularly welcome photographers to my studio in Hyères, from all walks of life (amateur and professional). More often than not, I am left speechless by their “technical-artistic” convictions. The sharper (and more contrasted), we hear, even “to the point of being able to count the exact number of black dots on the noses of their female models” (yes, yes), the greater their enthusiasm! And then, when I point out the slightly indelicate nature of their approach, they hasten to add that, afterwards, they replace their model’s skin with what might commonly be called “plugin skin”! Is that what this is all about? It’s beyond comprehension Charles!
Frédéric Joncour
[1] and also in Hyères probably ! 🙂 🙂 🙂
