The first state-sponsored photographic survey of architectural monuments. In 1837 the French government founded the Commission des Monuments Historiques to inventorize France's ancient and medieval structures for the purpose of preservation and restoration. It was headed by Prosper Mérimée, who visited a different region each year between 1834 and 1853 to catalogue the monuments by historical importance and need for repair. In 1839 Isidore-Séverin-Justin Taylor suggested using daguerreotypes to document the commission's work and aid in the restoration, but Mérimée considered the daguerrean image too cold and ugly. A decade later, however, when the calotype came to prominence in France, Mérimée made photography an integral part of the commission. The paper process in its improved form was both precise and atmospheric, which perfectly suited the project's scientific and romantic purposes. Mérimée commissioned five photographers—Édouard-Denis Baldus, Hippolyte Bayard, Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, and O. Mestral, all of whom except Bayard (who worked with albumen on glass) used the calotype process. Each photographer was given a detailed list of monuments by region, and in the summer and autumn of 1851 they together produced more than 300 paper negatives, which were deposited the following year in the archives of the Palais Royal (Bayard's glass negatives have been lost). Their artistic approach was undoubtedly influenced by Taylor's monumental publication Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France (20 vols., 1820-78) and Blanquart-Évrard's 1851 Traité, which included a section on how to capture a structure's beauty using the paper process. Having completed their work, the mission photographers hoped to see the photographs published and their art recognized, yet no such publication was ever produced by the commission. Mérimée's goal was to repair the decaying monuments, and the photographs were not treated as works of art but as functional aids. All five photographers, however, received later commissions on the basis of their mission work.
— Molly Rogers
Bibliography
- Mondenard, A. de, La Mission Héliographique: cinq photographes parcourent le France en 1851 (2002)
