Getty Museum
Théophile Gautier
Creator
Nadar [Gaspard Félix Tournachon]French Photographer · 1820–1910
All works by this person →> The sun is only the practitioner, M[r]. Nadar is the artist who wants to give him some work. So wrote a critic of Gaspard Félix Tournachon in 1859. Tournachon's nickname, Nadar, derived from youthful slang, but became his professional signature and the name by which he is best known today. Poor but talented, Nadar began by scratching out a living as a freelance writer and caricaturist. His writi
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1856
- Medium
- Salted paper print
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Theophile Gautier here embodies the image of the Romantic poet. He sports an elegant cap of damask cloth trimmed with braid, and his shaggy beard and hair seem to grow right into his furry overcoat. He gazes thoughtfully away from the camera, solemn and erect, with his hand thrust into his waistcoat. Gautier was a poet and journalist who championed the concept of "art for art's sake," that is, that art need serve no other purpose than to exist for its own achievement. He later softened his approach, explaining that, "smitten in my youngest years with painting and sculpture, I became a delirious lover of art?." Gautier and Nadar were lifelong friends. As editor of the journal *L'Artiste*, Gautier published many of Nadar's photographs, including an engraving after this portrait in 1859. Another version of this image, an edition print of the kind that Nadar offered for sale in his studio, was trimmed to an oval.
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