7410.e.17, 2

Imprint: Paris. Ve Jules Renouard, Libraire. 6, rue de Tournon, 6. 1862.

Half-leather octavo, green buckram boards (British Museum binding, 1930), measuring 275 x 185 mm, pp. xi, 128; containing 71 oval albumen print portraits of subjects undergoing electrical stimulation to induce specific facial expressions. In his introduction to the work, Duchenne writes that the facts brought to light in his 'electro-physiological' researches on the mechanisms of human physiognomy, while of great importance, had been either ignored or contradicted through prejudice, and that therefore only experimental demonstration could bring about their scientific acceptance. He then addresses the importance, indeed indispensibility of photography in his work: 'Photography, accurate as a mirror, will allow readers to be present, so to speak, at my electro-physiological experiments, and to judge the validity of the deductions I draw from them. From 1852, convinced of the impossibility of popularizing or even publishing this research without the aid of photography, I contacted talented artists. These first attempts did not and could not succeed. In photography, as in painting or sculpture, one can only render truly what one truly feels. The art is more than skilful manipulation. For those encountering my researches, it is necessary, by means of subtle lighting, to know how to highlight this or that expressive line. Even the most skilled artist cannot do this alone, for he will not understand the physiological examples being demonstrated. I had, therefore, to learn photography myself...' Duchenne writes that he either took the majority of the photographs himself or oversaw the work, crediting the assistance of Adrien Tournachon, brother of the more celebrated Nadar, for some of the images. Finally, to ensure the accuracy of the work, he allowed no retouching of the photographs. As to the photographs themselves, Duchenne acknowledges their variable quality, blaming shortcomings on the state of photographic technology: the expressions stimulated in his subjects by the application of electricity were of short duration, weakening swiftly, and therefore necessitating the shortest possible exposures: 'In the period when most of my photographs were taken (from 1852 to 1856), cameras were less perfect than those of today. I therefore had to use German lenses, which were the only sufficiently fast available. Unfortunately, these lenses produce minor distortions and lack depth of field, so that, for instance, if the eye was in focus, the nose and ears no longer were. It often happened that in order to demonstrate certain characteristics and to show them clearly, I was forced to sacrifice others, which, in photographic terms, were blurred; or, in order to show the whole, I was forced to compromise, so that no individual part was perfect.' Although cameras and lenses had improved by the 1860s, Duchenne was unwilling to discard this early work, which still possessed 'scientific and artistic interest,' considering that that some of the photographs were reminiscent of Rembrandt and Ribera. The photographs included in the work are severely cropped from the original plates: a number of the images produced with Tournachon reproduced in their uncropped form in Maria Morris Hambourg et al., 'Nadar' (New York, 1995), plates 1-5. Although Duchenne considered that the size of the images in this work (approximately a quarter life-size) was sufficient to distinguish the structure of expression, he also produced for teaching purposes, between 1856-57, life-size copies enlarged from the original prints.