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334 OUR FRENCH CORRESPONDENT.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
O- Paris, Dec. 19, 1861. The Artistic Th...
productions one can well understand the immense advantages which will result froni the general adoption of Disderi's photographie aux
and idees the _, and naturalist what stores . The of inform Emperor ation has it will instructe collect d him for the to carry historian out
his plan with the least possible delay , and to teach it to a corps of military photographers now attached to every French regiment .
The third apartment is devoted to imitations , on a large scale , of oil and water-color paintings , as well as those done in crayons . But
failure is depicted upon the surface of each one of them . Perhaps , if great colorists would turn their attention to this "branch of art ,
the result would "be more fortunate . As it is , none but the most inferior artists adopt it , for want of some easier way of gaining a
livelihood . All the colors here employed want softness ; their tone Is strikingly gaudy and inharmonious . This branch is evidently in
its infancy ; and the crudities of a childhood giving promise of a great maturity obtrude themselves upon the eye of the visitor as
harshly as do the rectilineal lines and general hardness of contour that is displayed in the objects at a railway terminus . There are
, however , two portraits not positively disagreeable—those of the Princess Clotilde and the Princess Danilo . In the adjacent salon
are exhibited visiting cards , painted in imitation of oils . They may be truly classed among the prodigies . They are executed by
M . Gaume , who displays all the light force , if such a term can be permittedof Plasson or of Meissonier . This artist works incessantly
in perfecting , a branch of his profession of which he possesses a monopoly .
Then comes " the gallery of celebrated contemporaries . " Disderi lias had the honor of photographing nearly every crowned head in
Europe ; and politicians , as well as he aux esprits of every possible variety , have visited his studio and had their likenesses taken there .
But this ingenious Frenchman is not a person to do things by halves , and has called in literature to illustrate art , as he has summoned art
to pourtray the representatives of contemporaneous literature . To each portrait is appended a biography , concise as it is amusing ,
sparkling , light , and animated . This collection is thus , in every sensea history of the nineteenth century , and also contains a series
of documents , that later will be of inestimable value , and which at present must be deeply interesting to those ingenious persons who
take as much pleasure in reading the mind's physiognomy in the handwriting as upon the human " face divine . "
Side by side with each biography is displayed the autograph of the hero or heroine . All of them express in a thousand forms the
writer ' s thanks to M . Disderi ; and the Grand Duchess Olga was so delighted with her likeness , that with her own fair hands she
consented to write a complimentary letter of three lines to the artist . In a corner of the " galerie des _contemjporames " is modestly placed
one of the most important sections of "this interesting collection .
It consists of the " epreuves au charbon " by M . Lafon de Carmarsac ,
334 Our French Correspondent.
334 OUR FRENCH CORRESPONDENT .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1862, page 334, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011862/page/46/
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