Wednesday 3 November 2010

Reality Research: Hippolyte Bayard

Hippolyte Bayard - Self Portrait as a Drowned Man (1840)

Bayard is one of the earliest photographers in the history of the art, he was born in January 1807 and died in May 1887. His image above - Self Portrait as a Drowned Man. Was an image which is legendary and started something which he did not expect.

The story goes that goes with the image is that Bayard was working on the Calotype process at the same time at Louis Daguerre but Daguerre patented the idea before Bayard, meaning that he could not claim any fame or money from the process he had been working on for years. This is why Bayard took this image, the first self portrait as it is. The image itself is interesting as conceptually it is an image which expresses Bayard's disgust and death to the photographic world. As many contemporary photographers do now a days with self portraits - they make up scenarios to put themselves within - Cindy Sherman being a prime example, others would be Yasummasa Morimura with his images of placing himself within another image of someone famous. In relation to a direct copy of Bayards image many people have re-created it. One image which is not a recreation but in referance to would be Sam Taylor Woods image called Soliloquy 1.

On the back of Bayard's image he wrote a note on the back - perhaps in reference to a suicide note on the back which states why he drowned himself, part of it says 'The Government, which has been only too generous to Monsieur Daguerre, has said it can do nothing for Monsieur Bayard, and the poor wretch drowned himself. Oh the vagaries of human life... He has been at the morgue for several days, and no one has recognised or claimed him. Ladies and Gentlemen, you'd better pass along for fear of offending your sense of smell, for as you can observe, the face and hands of the gentleman are staring to decay' This was inscribed on the reverse of the image. When people saw this image and note at the time they believed it and didn't know what to make of it. This is also I feel where one of the big debates about whether photography was truthful or not - or rather in connection to this project whether or not photography was actually reality. As this photograph expresses Bayard's reality of how he was fobbed off by Daguerre but yet to the public he didn't actually commit suicide so he is lying. A debate which would have caused high controversy at the time.

A few points I wanted to make about this image is that it was the first self-portrait photograph but also it was one of the first male nude images also. Back when the image was created it was strange for a man to have his top off, this is why you can see that his face and his hands are tanned a lot in comparison to his torso. Something else I've just spotted is that the hat on the left side of the image could be related back to Cindy Sherman's film still #7 where she is peering out of a door with shades on but on the left side is a hat, similar to the hat in the image above. I'm probably reading the image too much but for this to be the first self portrait and in Sherman's line of work it is possible that the link is there for a reason.


Just quickly as an example, the image by Morimura is in direct link to Edouard Manet's image called 'A Bar at the Folies Bargere (1882)


Cindy Sherman - Film Still #7
Cindy Sherman - Film Stills
This image does not directly relate to Bayards image but the concept of playing a character and not being yourself through self portraits is highlighted by any of the image in this series by Sherman.
Sam Taylor Wood - Soliloquy 1
This image is again not a direct link as it is not a self-portrait but instead she has used the similar stance which is palatable to the image of Bayard.

Gavin Tuck - Portrait of Something I'll Never See (1997)
This image is another to compare with that of Bayards in that both images are self-referential, they both look at themselves as a subject. The image by Gavin Turk is a portrait of his face with a deathly appearance, he has closed his eyes and has a death like peaceful pose.

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