Carl Dauthendey

Abstract

Abstract Fine things were written in the Leipziger Stadtanzeiger during the many years of its 19th century existence, but no editor could have foreseen that the lasting fame of this paper would depend on a single, often quoted, 1840 passage relating to the beginning of photography:1 The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible, as has been shown by thorough German investigation, but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in his own image, and no man-made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that God should have abandoned His eternal principles, and allowed a Frenchman in Paris to give to the world an invention of the Devil? ... True, God has so far been tolerant as far as his own creation of the mirror is concerned, toy of the Devil though it may be. He probably exercised restraint, because especially women will be able to see their own naivete in their mirrors, and will be able to detect vanity in their own faces. However, no mirror, neither one of glass nor one of quicksilver, has so far received permission from God to retain people's faces. Never has God allowed this Devil's artifact ... to score that kind of triumph, and to control that likeness of God, the human face.