Nov. 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



PHOTO-SCULPTURE. 



BY A. CLAUDET, F.B.S. 



If in our time opinions are divided as to whether photography is 

 finally to exercise a beneficial influence upon the fine arts, or the con- 

 trary, there is no question that its innumerable useful applications are a 

 boon to the community. After having been habituated to photography, 

 we can scarcely suppose it possible to do without photography, as we 

 might say of railways or of the electric telegraph. Photography may 

 have been the enemy of all that was inferior in the arts of painting and 

 engraving, but is that to be regretted ? Instead of the dabblers in por- 

 traiture who were satisfying a morbid taste, we have a great army of 

 photographers capable of representing the human form and features in 

 the utmost perfection. The art of painting, instead of being injured, 

 is served by photography, which enables artists to be more perfect in their 

 design, and to study the beauty of forms yielded by the photographic 

 mirror. Photography, in multiplying marvellous representations of the 

 beauties of Nature, tends to inculcate the taste for artistic productions. 

 There will be fewer bad painters, because there will be less and less de- 

 mand for inferior paintings. Fine works only will be esteemed, and the 

 taste for art will increase in proportion to the value of its productions. 

 How can it be said that photography prevents the artist from imparting 

 to his work the impress of genius ? Photography is for him only a use- 

 ful auxiliary. Nothing can arrest the strides of photography ; it extends 

 every day its applications and gradually invades every art. Who would 

 have expected that photography was to be the means of sculpture? Yet, 

 however extraordinary such a prognostication might appear, however 

 difficult at first thought it may be to understand the possible connection 

 between flat representation of objects and their solid form, it has been 

 proved that, from flat photographs, a bust, a statue, or other object of 

 three dimensions can be made by a mechanical process without the 

 necessity of the sculptor's' copying the original, or even seeing it at all. 

 vol. v. s 



