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Two pictures of the Chalons camp nicely illustrate the rapport between painting and photography under the Second Empire: the Fête arabe improvisée par les zouaves and Les feux du bivouac (Arab Celebration improvised by the Zouaves and The Bivouac Fires). They are the work of a painter by profession, Benedict Masson, a buddy of Le Gray's from the painter Paul Delaroche's atelier. The snapshot not yet been invented nor was the flash perfected, so they used drawings and paintings to represent the nocturnal scenes that would eventually be photographed and integrated into photographic reportage. The drawings gave artists the freedom to bring together scenes separated by both space and time; and so Masson assembled on one picture the most striking episodes that had actually occurred successively during this Arab celebration, or put together scenes of bivouac fires from different billets of the imperial guard set up on various parts of the Suippe. |
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[The Imperial Quarter] [The Zouaves] [Billeting] [Maneuvers] [Mass] [Sculpture at the Chalons Camp] [Nighttime Scenes]