Highest intelligences - Sagacious minds - and Fools!

[Kodiak]

•

"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)


"Photography is a wonderful discovery,
a science which occupies the highest intelligences,
an art which sharpens the most sagacious minds and
whose application is to reach the last fools."
— Félix Tournachon, aka Nadar (1857)

This was said more then 150 years ago!
At the time, there were no "auto everything" cameras.

• If Nadar called them "last fools" then… what would he call them today?

• Aware that he could not have known the future developments in photography,
do you think this judgement would still apply today?

What do you say?

[Mike Buckley]

I've never liked such elitist attitudes as that one expressed by Nadar (assuming the English translation is accurate). I doubt that the science of photography required the highest intelligence as much as it required the most perseverance and willingness to repeatedly fail until success was finally achieved. The art of photography probably sharpened the sagacious minds less than the business of photography. If it is fools whom photography last reached, Daguerre should have been eternally grateful for each and every one of them. That's because he received a lifetime stipend from the French government in return for making his process available royalty-free to everyone in the world except English citizens.

As an example, I've read more than 20 books about Benjamin Franklin, who was always concerned for the well being of the everyday person. I don't remember seeing anything written or said by Franklin that is so elitist other than a comment about "boorish" Germans in colonial America that got him in trouble, and deservedly so.

[Glenn NK]

All one needs do is follow a few threads over at DPReview forums - there seems to be a large collection of "them" under the heading Open Talk (I've been there recently, trying not to be one of them, but it's rather hopeless).

It can be a head-beating-into-the-wall exercise, so it seems that "last fools" still exist (won't they always?).

However, I'm not quite in agreement that photography's application is to reach fools in any way.

Maybe talking about fools is elitist, maybe not. But there are many common expressions about them: "A fool and his money are soon parted"; "A fool's errand"; and the list goes on. "There's a sucker born every minute" must surely be in the same vein (apparently P.T Barnum did not say that).

http://www.answers.com/Q/Who_said_%2...very_minute%27

But this one is new to me.

Interesting topic - I'm afraid it will go on forever though.

Glenn

[tao2]

This was said more then 150 years ago!
At the time, there were no "auto everything" cameras.

• If Nadar called them "last fools" then… what would he call them today?

• Aware that he could not have known the future developments in photography,
do you think this judgement would still apply today?

What do you say?

Judgement on whom? He was a wealthy man, patronised by other wealthy men. Was he sneeringly referring to them - espousing the greater fool theory?

Ah don't see how ye can conflate "auto everything cameras" with a 150 yo statement? That's just illogical.

[MrB]

Just as can happen in a web forum, when any opinion is available only in text, the quote is open to (mis)interpretation, not least because we are denied clues to the intended meaning that we would normally receive, from the tone of voice and body language of the person expressing the opinion, in a face to face discussion.

The Nadar quote could be interpeted in a way that is anything but elitist. He might have been referring to the whole range of human intellect, wisdom and morality, by describing some of the extremes. Perhaps he was predicting what is now true - that photography would become available to anyone, for good or ill - for use at the highest levels of human creativity, down to the level of the common casual snapshot, and also down into areas of misuse, e.g. for the exploitation of others.

Cheers.
Philip

P.S. There is a misquote in Post #2 - "If it is fools whom photography last reached" when Nadar's quote states "whose application is to reach the last fools" - two quite different meanings.

[Kodiak]

Ah don't see how ye can conflate "auto everything cameras" with a 150 yo statement? That's just illogical.

Hey Boab!

Simply because this statement did not change a iota:
• Photography is still a great discovery as such as well as a personal discovery…
new fans are coming every year and discover themselves through it…
• Molecular cluster or pixel based both require some brains…
• The artistic intent differs in the technical means but not in the content or motivation…
• Newer technologies with "auto everything cameras" more then ever extend the reach
of the application.

This is how I can… logical!

[Kodiak]

The Nadar quote could be interpreted…

Right, and it could apply very well to me:

I can do many things with my ten fingers, carpentry, music, sports, I can write but…
• I can't draw but technical drawings,
• I can't paint but a mono colour wall or chair…
• I can't illustrate but by words or photography… and there I am!

There I am among the fools… Nadar, if he was calling fools those with no
talent to access the "at the time definition" of graphic artists, nailed me right there!

Photography takes me into the club of the talented graphic artists! … club that
would be otherwise out of reach!

[Kodiak]

… attitudes as that one expressed by Nadar (assuming the English translation is accurate)…

Please, trust me on that one!

[Mike Buckley]

P.S. There is a misquote in Post #2 - "If it is fools whom photography last reached" when Nadar's quote states "whose application is to reach the last fools" - two quite different meanings.

You're right that they have two different meanings. It was my assumption that if the application is to reach the last fools it would also be the fools whom photography would last reach. The two ideas are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

[Mike Buckley]

Maybe talking about fools is elitist, maybe not. But there are many common expressions about them: "A fool and his money are soon parted";

I don't remember whether Benjamin Franklin originally coined that phrase or rewrote a phrase coined earlier by someone else. He often rewrote and improved others' phrases by making them shorter and more concise. Even so, he definitely used the phrase in a letter, his Autobiography or both. (I don't remember and didn't look it up.)

However, Franklin didn't use the phrase in an elitist way; he used it to describe himself and a donation he had made. He had attended a sermon (I think) in Philadelphia given by a preacher for the purpose of raising funds for an orphanage in Georgia. Though Franklin was determined at the beginning of the sermon not to make a donation, the preacher was so convincing that he donated everything in his pockets.

[Mike Buckley]

At the time, there were no "auto everything" cameras.

This reminds me of a print process I had forgotten about. It was called the Autotype, which was invented in 1864 and made commercially available in 1866 as an improvement of the carbon print process. The only thing that was automatic about it was that tissues were pre-coated with gelatin and pigment, alleviating the photographer from having to coat them before printing images.

[HaseebM]

•

"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)


"Photography is a wonderful discovery,
a science which occupies the highest intelligences,
an art which sharpens the most sagacious minds and
whose application is to reach the last fools."
— Félix Tournachon, aka Nadar (1857)

This was said more then 150 years ago!
At the time, there were no "auto everything" cameras.

• If Nadar called them "last fools" then… what would he call them today?

• Aware that he could not have known the future developments in photography,
do you think this judgement would still apply today?

What do you say?

If we are discussing about it now, it must be true.

[ajohnw]

I read it as sharpening the mind and then in real terms reaching people who aren't so smart and sharpening them too. Could be fools relates to people who don't like or want photography.

I suspect people are reading it from a modern English perspective - not 19th Century French and even English from that time can look a little weird as the general idiom can be distinctly different.

I'd guess Arthur Wellesley etc had something to do with it what ever it was being excluded from the English.

John
-

[Kodiak]

Could be fools relates to people who don't like or want photography.

Hey John,

Fools translates by "imbéciles" in French and in the days you are referring to,
it had a meaning far less harmful the usage today, nevertheless…

In those days, it meant an "unknown nobody", unrelate to any fashionable
society or having none of the desirable wealth, talent etc: a "no one"! …fits
perfectly in the context.

Today, the "imbécile" has, basically, no talent nor intelligence… very
harmful but still fitting in the statement given the higher levels of techno-
logies implied.

[TonyW]

I believe that the correct interpretation of this is that photography is a challenge and an education to the smartest of people but can be enjoyed and appreciated by the dumbest. I don't see this as elitist for, as Daniel (Kodiak) says, we are all both smart and dumb in different ways.

If that is the correct interpretation, it is as true today as it was in 1857.

[Kodiak]

I believe that the correct interpretation of this is that photography is a challenge and an education to the smartest of people but can be enjoyed and appreciated by the dumbest. I don't see this as elitist for, as Daniel (Kodiak) says, we are all both smart and dumb in different ways.

If that is the correct interpretation, it is as true today as it was in 1857.

You got it right Tony! :-)

[Mike Buckley]

I believe that the correct interpretation of this is that photography is a challenge and an education to the smartest of people but can be enjoyed and appreciated by the dumbest. I don't see this as elitist

If that's the correct interpretation, I agree that it's not elitist in the slightest.

[ajohnw]

I suspect it correct Mike. As Kodiak pointed out words can have different meaning even at different times in the past. Syntax - order of words also varies with languages and over time. Translation can't really help in that respect as a literal translation can loose these aspects.

John

[William W]

. . . I suspect people are reading it from a modern English perspective - not 19th Century French and even English from that time can look a little weird as the general idiom can be distinctly different.

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

[Glenn NK]

William:

Thank you. That was very interesting and illuminating - it's not so easy to understand what was meant over one hundred years ago, particularly in written tracts. Just think how much the English language has changed in even the past ten years, let alone 150 plus years.

I would suspect that French did change too - Daniel (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. My father left his home country as a 14 year old boy in 1926, and when he went back to visit in 1991, they said his Ukrainian was "quaint".

Glenn