The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre by Dominic Smith

 Louis Daguerre (1787-1851) was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography. Also recognizes as one of the fathers of photography. Though he is most famous for his contributions to photography, he was also an accomplished painter and a developer of the diorama theater (mobile theater device).

Paris, 1847: Daguerre’s body is faltering, a byproduct of working with chemicals for more than a decade. However, he continues his pursuit of a new daguerreotype. At the same time, he continues to be infatuated with the only woman he has ever loved, Isobel Le Fournier. He saw her the last time 40 years ago. She was 22 years old, and he was 19. 

As the story alternates between present time and the time when he was 14 and Isobel was a girl maid working at his father’s estate. “They struck up an arrangement out of mutual need: Louis needed a woman to study, to fall in love with, and Isobel needed distraction from her household chores.”

After leaving his parents’ house in the country, as a young man he arrives in Paris, where he finds an apprenticeship as a scenic painter. A dozen years after his apprenticeship, Louis becomes the head designer for the second-largest theater in Paris.

1823: He feels happy with his life. He feels connected to everything that matters. “He feels part of a widespread fraternal emotion – the simple pleasure of being alive in a century whose great ideas were progress and perfect-ability.” 

His initial steps toward photography were accidental. But now he has a vision, “the idea that nature could sketch herself using nothing but sunlight. (…) He surrounded himself with books on the history of optics and light manipulation.” He traces the first attempts to the mines of Freiberg in 1556. “Then there were the 1802 experiments of Wedgwood and Davy, two Englishmen who claimed to have found a method of copying paintings upon glass, using the agencies of light and nitrate of silver. They called the effect sun drawing.“

As he reads, he senses a major discovery, fugitive images looming to be captured.

August 19, 1839, at the Academy, the process referred to as the daguerreotype is presented. “Within an hour of the presentation, Paris was crazed with photomania. (…) Within a week of this event, the country and the world knew him by name. (…) Within a year, his process was being used on five continents, in service of almost every field of human endeavor…” 

As Louis Daguerre was born two years before the French Revolution, which lasted 10 years, the story gives some glimpses of the revolution through peasant looting and burning estates belonging to aristocracy. The time period of this story is strongly presented through the people who made their mark during that time. It also gives some other glimpses of the time period such as social conditions and fashion. The execution of the time period is very interesting. It reveals how much research the author must have done and his skill in presenting it. “Despite the revolution and the call for an egalitarian society (equality for all people), gentlemen still favored three or four waistcoats, a lineage of gold buttons, Polish trousers; the women continued to wear barege and merino gowns, gold fringed velvets, their hair up in chignons.” 

The characters of Louis and Isobel (though fictional character), both are richly developed. The author skillfully captures the flavor of the real Daguerre’s life and the historical context in which he achieved his fame. The end brings a moving touch to the story.

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